Train - an embarrassing and unforgettable memory

In 1993, when I was ten years old, my family moved with my parents from a relatively backward prefecture-level city to the provincial capital because of my family’s job transfer. Migrating across the city brought me into close contact with a train for the first time, but this first time left me not with joy, but with embarrassment and unbearableness.

In that era, trains were still the main means of transportation for people to travel long distances. As for airplanes, many people probably thought that they would never have the opportunity to fly into the sky on that big thing. Therefore, the train is closer to everyone and more friendly. But in the eyes of many children, distant planes are much more friendly than trains.

At that time, planes occasionally flew over the sky. When the weather was good, we could feast our eyes on her, like a white bird, with a faint and ethereal roar, flying in the sky. Floating leisurely and leisurely in front of the big blue curtain. Usually before the show starts, there will be a child with the sharpest eyes shouting: "Look at the plane!" All the dolls will be like robots that have received instructions, throwing down the bricks, tiles, branches and sticks in their hands. The ones digging out ant holes, peeing and building houses with mud also stopped, and all turned their backs to the sky, while shouting The sky shouted excitedly: Plane! airplane! Take a plane! While staring closely at the plane, he groped forward and moved slowly, hoping that the plane would stay in his field of vision for a while until the plane became farther and farther away, smaller and smaller, and disappeared from the horizon. I don’t know what other children will think when they look at the airplane, but the picture in my mind is that she will throw a rope from the distant sky, and I will climb on her back along the rope, and wait until she flies into the clouds Here I can step on the clouds and fly wherever I want, like Sun Wukong on TV. I want to find where this Lingxiao Palace is.

Compared with planes flying far in the sky, trains rarely have the opportunity to appear in front of children. The number of times adults travel to different places during the year is far less frequent than it is now, and the number of children even less. From this point of view, I am relatively lucky among my peers. Although I have never seen a train, let alone ridden one, I can often really feel its existence.

My family lives in a large courtyard. Walls of different heights, old and new, connected end to end, circled the scope of the compound. The compound was similar to the current residential area, but the area was several times larger than the current residential area. In the middle of the entire compound is a simple road paved with clay mixed with cinders. On the east side of the road are four factories distributed from south to north. It was said to be a factory, but it has long been deserted and has become a deserted area overgrown with weeds. Only the clearly defined walls and the large closed iron gates still tell people that this was once an orderly factory area. Looking back now, it is like a scene in a horror movie. We even regard whether we dare to climb over the wall and enter the factory as an important criterion for testing a child's courage. I was a coward, and I only dared to go in with other children, but I would never dare to go in myself. It's not like climbing over the wall to get in, but crawling in through the gap between the door and the ground. It's really timid. Fortunately, there are several children who are as timid as me. Opposite the area where the factory is located, rows of bungalows lie on the west side of the road, home to about sixty or seventy families. The houses are all single-family houses, with a large courtyard, facing north and south, connected to the left and right, and facing each other through walls.

At the northernmost end of the compound, there is a wall as high as one person. The "boundary wall" is painted with white primer, and on it are written in big red paint "Planned Parenthood for Everyone" Slogans such as "Responsibility", several words in which have been trampled incomplete and bumpy because children often climb out of the wall. Why go over the wall? Because behind this wall is another world. After climbing over the wall, you are out of the compound. A few hundred meters to the north there are four or five hills. Going around these hills is a railway. The terrain of the compound is high in the north and low in the south. My house happens to be in the north area of ??the compound. Therefore, whenever a train passes by in the north, I can not only clearly hear the roaring whistle of the train, but also see the foot of the mountain in the distance. A burst of white mist rose from everywhere.

I knew it must be sprayed out by the train, because it always rises into the sky with the sound of the whistle. This is really scary enough for a little baby. Contrary to the pure and lofty feeling of an airplane, a train is a terrifying monster that lives in a distant mountain. It also makes roaring sounds and spits thick smoke. This is not a monster.

When it was time to move, my parents were busy packing up all kinds of bottles and jars and odds and ends. As a little kid, I couldn’t help much. On the contrary, it was a burden, so my parents simply let me take the train with my uncle and aunt to go ahead. In many small cities, train stations can be regarded as local landmarks. Coupled with the open square in front of the station, the tourists coming and going, and the mixed small vendors of all kinds, the station is even more unusual.

On the night of departure, we had dinner early and arrived at the station more than an hour early. I followed closely behind my uncle in the square in front of the station, and was fascinated by this place that I had passed countless times but never set foot in. Both curious and timid. The small square in front of the station was filled with all kinds of passers-by, but what impressed me deeply was not the passers-by but the various luggage bags on their shoulders. At that time, trolley cases were not yet popular. People with better conditions would carry a travel bag. Those with average conditions could simply use a blue and white striped snakeskin bag as a luggage bag. It was also very affordable. The handle of the bag was just long enough to carry the luggage. People sling it over their shoulders. My height allows me to look straight at the various duffel bags. In the dimly lit station square, blue and white stripes became the brightest colors on a winter night. People from all directions carrying various travel bags intertwined in this small square. The cold winter air caused people's rapid exhalation to quickly turn into a cloud of mist. Under the illumination of the orange street lamps, a slight halo was emitted, and in an instant Dispersed in the air. The station is really a magical place. Not only do trains come here and then drive away, but so do the people. They are like trains, dragging luggage and blowing smoke, coming here and traveling in all directions. It's just that the train knows where it's going, but people don't necessarily know what kind of stop is waiting for them.

Not long after I entered the waiting hall, I was looking at the towering roof in trance, when suddenly the situation suddenly changed and the ticket checking began. The creaking sound of the small iron gate at the entrance was like a referee's gunshot. The already noisy waiting hall instantly burst out with huge energy. While they were talking and laughing, they put away their expressions and smoked cigarettes. He shook his hand and neatly threw down the unfinished cigarette in his hand. People from every corner threw their bags on their shoulders and began to flow towards the small entrance. The crowds of people carrying luggage bags gathered around me, the light began to dim, and the air mixed with the smell of cigarettes, instant noodles, and sweat became more and more turbid. It was as if I was suddenly buried in a pile of boulders. I was frightened by this sudden agitation. My uncle was holding my hand in front of me, and my aunt was holding my shoulders behind me. They protected me one after another in the crowd, isolating me from the various travel bags around me. Come on. I followed my uncle numbly, for fear that I would be swept away by the dense duffel bags around me. After moving forward for about seven or eight minutes, the crowd suddenly dispersed, the sweet air hit our faces along with the dazzling lights on the platform, and we finally walked out of the ticket hall.

We were carried by the crowd into an underground passage, passed through a period of darkness and then returned to the ground. The huge train suddenly appeared in front of us, like a sleeping train. The giant steel beast, its huge body lying quietly on the track in front of it. The platform was built very low, and the carriages were nearly one meter above the ground. This made the train appear taller and allowed me to fully see the whole train. The huge iron wheels were connected together by black steel arms. There were round holes scattered on the wheels. The machines around the wheels were thickly covered with black oil. Not only did the lights on the platform not let them It became clearer but seemed darker, which was in sharp contrast to the mirror-like smooth rails. The dull dark green carriage makes the already very tall steel beast look even more majestic.

The open doors are connected in series by bright windows. Each door projects a beam of white light onto the platform, like a magic door in a fairy tale that can lead to another world. I walked timidly into the white light, and before I had time to take a closer look inside, I was picked up by my uncle and pushed in.

Limited by train capacity, in order to meet people's travel needs as much as possible, many station tickets will be sold for the hard-seat carriages of each train. Ours was a standing ticket, so I could only look at the big green seat and imagine what it would be like to sit on it. With a slight sway, the train started to move. The trains at that time moved very slowly, and it took about three hours to travel a mere 200 kilometers between the two cities. I leaned on the backrest of the passenger seat between the front and rear rows of seats and stood close to my uncle. The surroundings were crowded with passengers, and duffel bags were scattered on the floor. Looking up, he saw nothing except his uncle's serious expression and the dim overhead light. Due to my short stature and the crowded passenger compartment, there was basically nothing I could observe except the floor. But even the floor seems extremely novel to me. The dark red color on the surface has become brightly shiny after years of friction. The floor extends to the area under the seat, which is shrouded in darkness. I wonder if there may be some bugs or even mice underneath, which makes me a little nervous standing on the edge of the seat. But it wasn’t long before I stopped worrying about the unknown world beneath my seat as I encountered more troublesome problems.

I have had a problem with motion sickness since I was a child. Because of my gluttony, I ate a radish on the way back to my hometown with my father in a car. As a result, I vomited all the way. From then on, the problem of motion sickness disappeared. I originally thought that motion sickness was specific to cars, but I didn’t expect that I would be affected by train sickness as well.

I can’t remember clearly what I ate before boarding the train and where I ate it. I just remember that not long after the train left, the food in my stomach began to become restless. They followed the rhythm of the train. It sways and attacks the throat along the esophagus. My head also started to feel dizzy. Looking back, it felt like the feeling before vomiting after drinking too much alcohol. Although I am only a child, I already have extremely fragile self-esteem. This is my first time taking a train, and I am surrounded by strangers. If I make a fool of myself, I will not only be embarrassed, but also my uncle and aunt.

I tried to focus on staring at the floor, hoping to relieve some of the motion sickness, but it didn't take long for me to find that this method didn't work because I already felt a force pushing against my chest. I quickly raised my head, gritted my teeth, and shifted my gaze back and forth between the overhead lights and the surrounding passengers, trying not to pay attention to the increasingly severe dizziness. I seemed to feel that the dizziness was not so strong for a while, but after all, I still overestimated my control ability. Everything around him began to deform. Under the dim white light, the boundaries between the people around him and the red floor were somewhat blurred. The turbid air in the car seemed to be getting thinner and thinner, making people feel a little breathless. All this, mixed with the noisy conversations of the passengers, turned into the most powerful emetic. I could no longer suppress the strength in my chest, and my throat became the last dam to face the flood, but this dam was not even close enough. The resistance was overwhelmed, and the power in his chest suddenly burst out from his mouth. In just two or three seconds, everything was over, and the world instantly returned to peace. I felt that everyone in the carriage stopped talking and turned their disdainful eyes on me. I lowered my head and didn't dare to raise my eyes. I supported my knees with both hands and stared straight at the floor that I had changed the color of. I kept gasping for air to cover up my embarrassment. I was embarrassed to turn around and look at my uncle and aunt standing nearby. They must have felt that I had embarrassed them.

It turns out that a child's self-esteem is too fragile. My uncle and aunt didn't seem to feel any discomfort at all, as if my vomiting was a necessary item for this trip. The uncle simply asked: What's wrong, are you motion sick? Then I went to find a mop. My aunt knelt down and kept patting my back, and kept asking me if I still wanted to vomit. I still lowered my head and shook my head feebly.

The comfort from my uncle and aunt made me feel better. At least they didn't feel embarrassed because of my embarrassment. The floor behind was quickly cleaned by my uncle and restored to its luster. The dizzy feeling gradually dissipated and everything returned to normal, but I never raised my head again. I really was not in the mood to look carefully at the train where I first met again. I didn’t have the courage to look at the passengers around me.

This experience may be regarded as an extremely embarrassing one in my memory. The reason why I can still vividly remember the experience of riding a train for the first time may be due to this. Well, great sorrow, great joy, or humiliation and embarrassment are probably the most conspicuous marks in memories. This unbearable journey also opened up a new path in my life, just like a train passing through a fork in the road and running onto a completely different track. After that, our family successfully settled down in the new city, and a new environment, new people, and new things came to us, including embarrassment, depression, pain, and joy. This is the wonderful thing about life. Facing a new journey, we never know what kind of situation we will be in, but one thing is for sure, many years later, they will become your stories.