There are great companies that go down in history and legend in Sublime, and there are newspaper companies, which belong to the life and memory of one or a few people.
The terracotta army of Xi'an belongs to the former. Take a train to Xi'an belongs to the latter, and I am sure that experience has come in individual told of several foreigners who are found to transit from there.
Our Suzhou train leaves at 17.00. At 16.30, the driver left us at the exit of the station car park. "Zai jian," he says hurriedly rushing down the stairs toward his car. We meet in front of the station, we are less than 50 meters from the entrance. But at that moment we understand that the chances of getting on the train are very low, realistically speaking void. The square was a sea of \u200b\u200bhuman bodies standing, sitting, lying, squatting, people eating, sleeping, perched on the boxes in tow, clutching small bags ill, including purses, bags, garbage bags filled with who knows what. There is no room for anyone or anything. There is no space to move forward especially, to push the stroller, to spend our limited luggage though. A dense crowd, the usual sea of \u200b\u200bpeople, which is progressing slowly and at some points in his orderly, quiet, composed. For Sale in us a little ' anxiety, fear of not succeeding. All around, no one seems to be struggling against time and what makes our company even more difficult, because there is a row or a current that pushes more, where we could enter or from which sucked us to exploit the pressure, press, the pressure of progress. We slipped, we look for a passage, we apologize 1000 times while we can gain some position, we take off, we gain strength with the passage by the front of the walk, we again apologize, explain that our train leaves at 17, heading higher and higher, more and more agitated, more and more desperate. No one seems to listen or understand. Channeled between the barriers, following the set course, hardly reach the first check of the tickets, we implore that we do cut the tails, we do go sideways, we have a child, our train leaves at 17 ... nothing to do. We must continue to follow the mass flow. The more we realize that there are no shortcuts, plus the way we gait becomes rude, abrupt, indifferent to the reactions of those around us, who we have to overcome and leave behind. Trudge, sustains us in some way. It's hot, no, we feel that hot. Salt the beat, anxiety salt, salt the rush, salt intolerance. We arrive at the second step, the second check, this time a gate high, white. It goes 1, 2 at a time. The flow is moving too slowly, do not we'll never. There, the police officer who parked beyond the fence, let's try! I explained to him, we pray, our train leaves in 10 minutes, we have a baby ... his gaze does not change the light, change color, does not change expression. I see a 10 RMB bill before then extracted quickly return to its proper place in the portfolio. They are knee jerk reactions, so illogical, irrational, born and die there on time, it is because there is nothing we can do. Nothing to do. There are alternatives, there are "different ways". So push, push, ankles, calves, feet, legs, bags, there make way through everyone and everything. Unhesitatingly jump the queue in front of the conveyor belt for baggage checks. We run, we do not stop even to check with metal detectors, we do not answer to anyone who calls back, sometimes not even there, we only see the stairs in front of us, we know instinctively that we need to go beyond. Fortunately, the stairs are moving. A few seconds to catch my breath, to mend their ideas. At the top, we do not know where to go, right and left doors leading into the waiting room, always so many people, too, right, left, right, where, where? I ask. Look, right there, no, not this room, the other. Turnabout, run, run. Cross the threshold of the waiting room, at the bottom of the fence with several entrances to the trains as the gate airport. Only in a completely different context. The room is crammed, overflowing with people, standing, sitting on the edges, anywhere. After all, our gates, already open, the green light flashing, people in transit, then the corridor leading to the rails, is emptying out, they're all going, gone by, we can not see beyond. But between us and that gate, there are, how many feet will that be? 50? Hundreds of people. Not an inch of space. 16:56. Do not we'll never. Scream, we implore those around us - in words, his eyes, with the movements - we reach, waving in the air tickets, we wiggle, and then we push, push ... but there is no physical space to create for ourselves a hole. Impossible. We also have the stroller. There is not space to take our daughter in her arms and close it, this stroller too. No, there is no space. We are stuck, trapped. The people look at us. There is still silence in this room, how is it possible? Look at us, but nobody moves a finger, no one complains about the jostling, no one seems to understand. None. I am a tide, are all there, watching us, but they - before we - know that there is no way to go. And perhaps for this reason no one moves.
In these moments, when you say "the race ends here", we will lose and who knows when the train again, in moments like these, you no longer feel the noise, you no longer feel the heat, pain, weight. Can not you see that even more around you. See the goal, you do not see what separates you from it. Nothing. Only two minds that are spoken almost without opening his mouth, two eyes that cross, four arms and four hands that begin - coordinated, almost in sync - to make movement extremely targeted, perfect, precise and effective. A bag-to-head in his hand, grabbed the stroller in front of and behind the rise, and rhythmically, in turn, we get our feet on the unoccupied space between a chair and one of the long row of metal chairs. And so, on balance, we begin our advance, the stroller in the air above us and their heads, that we move forward as we were on quicksand, one foot here a foot there, up and down the chairs of several rows of chairs that we must cut diagonally to reach our gate. Pests of all crushed the feet of people standing, people sitting legs, bags, bags, parcels, sorry but do know that we have no alternative. The stroller seems to fly above us. The bags do not know how, follow us. The meters are reduced. The breath is broke. Semi-apnea, and calculate where to put the feet and inches. Our stunts are accompanied by screams, our cries, others silent or nearly so. I hear a sigh, a few comments addressed the child unusually calm and quiet, then slowly start to see some hand stretching, which helps us interpret our despair eyes, arms accompanying the stroller, people who move to get us off. We arrive at the gate, one last "obstacle" to overcome the human, catapults us beyond the corridor, down the stairs that obviously are not mobile. Lacks the forces, the air, the time to understand, even the clarity falters. At the end, turn left, the train, the first open door and the stroller inside the bags on us. We are on the train. Not on the car right, but on the train. I can only repeat a few times Shanghai / Suzhou watching the passersby and the railroad, calling the response with the power of the gaze. Yes, we are on the right train.
A few seconds after the doors close and the train starts moving. We will wait several minutes before the controller steps to open the door between the two cars. We are there, leaning against the walls of the train, in a sweat, your luggage on the floor, breathing heavily. Around us, everything seems to indicate that we are back to normal.
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