
36 Hours of Nightmare
“Panic is a primitive emotion”
The cold had surpassed any limit of human supportability. Nevertheless, with courageous courage I did not even go on my way, although out there was -24 degrees Celsius, and I just did not care.
The weather was unfavorable even for a dog to let him out. All the time I was wondering, would I have a chance to succeed in what I had proposed to myself? But the great desire to win, led me to cope with the cold (the devastating frost), the snow that scattered every step, or the pole all of a sudden.
I had a ticket on the night train that was going to Timisoara at the company headquarters where I was trying to get myself hired for an interview. I honestly do not care who, what will I be asked or what will they ask me to do to prove my technical qualities.
I do not know why, but I started on this road with a strange feeling of insecurity, but not of fear or fear, or frustration, a natural feeling for all those who try to penetrate the new one, to penetrate another system.
In fact, I wanted to escape to a better world, not counting the consequences that could have occurred. In a better world as it was in my imagination, or perhaps how I dreamed of it after years of hard work in a job with a lot of people as bosses, bosses politically obvious and not advanced because of their managerial quality.
And there was another point, the fact that I wanted to show my creativity, to demonstrate to me and not to them why I was able to do it, even if we had a lot of barriers and contradictions in the form of the so-called policies management.
But I knew that I had gone from a very high salary to a lower salary, and it was lower, but I needed silence and not the hideous breath of a bloody director on the back all of the day, the hour having the ultimate goal of giving up my psychic.
Afterwards, I would have learned from my former colleagues that the hiring manager actually wanted to put a relative in my office, a character I knew as a nullity and an inability to think of the crash. But the fact that I took the step into the unknown, I did not want to give it satisfaction and only a moral palm. It struck too much in my feelings, the psychic demolition by trying to break the brick with the virtual wall I surrounded in hopes of protecting me against daily mischief.
The platform was deserted at that late hour of the night, poorly lighted, it pressed me very hard, creating confused feelings between desire and hatred, between curiosity and cold chills, and why not, the fact that I had not traveled much by train.
In my mind I imagined how it would be, to be alone in a classroom compartment of class 1, to dream, to read, and why not try to sleep a little.
But it was not the way I intended. Imagine that we had not been on the train for about 20 years. Anyway, I believed and hoped that in 20 years something will change for the better. And yet not. I’m wondering why?
The answer was very simple because they did not want to invest in any form, or maybe someone prevented them from realizing what they wanted, the wagons being miserable in all points, dirty, dirty, with seats whose upholstery was broken and exfoliated, filled with smoke like Greek, poorly laminated taverns.
Paraphrasing a former politician who has suddenly become a democrat and supporter of democracy, a visionary in politics, said in a television show that we need 20 years like us all the other ordinary people to understand what democracy is, but it was wrong that he did not say 20 years from now. But the reality is that many did not understand it, and on the contrary, the same habits and decadent orientalisms before 1989.
The steam on the platform gave me the impression of a frame in a Russian film, where the frost was at home, diffused brightly, that you had the impression of a dense, mountain-looking mountain, the personal waiting to leave had the appearance of passing passers-by. And yet … the time of departure was approaching slowly and sadly, marked by the two languages–of the platform clock and the noise produced by its central secondary.
I did not know what was waiting for me, but I had to seated myself in one of the compartments of that wagon, to travel and become an integral part of it for 10-12 hours until I arrived in Timisoara.
The distance was quite high around 600 km from Bucharest, which is not much in view of the length of the train, the wagons and the running track (sine) and the moderate speed of the locomotive plus the weather was not favorable for such trips.
In my luggage I had my camera I am never separated, even more so that I knew I would make nice pictures and still remain some nice memories in such poor conditions, as well as a few changes of clothes as I was not sure if I will stay in the city the following night and I will leave the next day.
Being the end of the week, I will see what I will do after the interview and I will decide, so it was natural to be prepared as strictly as necessary.
I was also interested in the weather forecast coming to the end of February, to know how it will be in Timisoara, anyway being convinced it will be much warmer and better than home.
Without panic for what to follow, and knowing that panic is a primitive emotion, I got courage and got into the train to find the ticket to find my seat for which I was paying.
But here the surprise, the compartment was miserable and ill-lighted, the sofas looked like after the war, but what disgusted me most was the cold in the compartment, as if it had not been heated for a long time. I said to myself that after the train started, the conpartment would warm up.
Maybe you will laugh, but I felt like a warm soul, put on for a few hours in the refrigerator for “frowning”. Oh God! I said I went through even more difficult situations, which I finally deposited. When the boss arrives to check my ticket, I will talk to him to find a suitable solution for me and not to have to take the cold in the wagon for 10-12 hours, especially since I was in the 1st class on the train.
I felt a bitter taste in my mouth, maybe annoyance, perhaps the inner soul revolt because I could not imagine that in the 21st century there could be such travel conditions, but I swore to myself that as long as you longer live will not circulate never train for those who should handle yet the comfort of the people should be aware of what to do and not mock them by such chicanes miserable.
I would have had to take the plane, but it cost too much for my financial possibilities from that time plus I did not know if the round-trip tickets would be settled by the company I was going to hire. That’s great, is not it?
The night was dark, black like a cocoon made of dirty snow and frost, of the terrible frost from outside.
I crouched on one of the chairs with a book in my hand and the tablet along, hoping everything would be good and I would forget at least during the travel the inhuman conditions I was going through.
At one point a sinister sound was heard at the train station, and with a tremendous wreckage of cars, the train set in motion, which I was glad to finally leave the train. I did not want to look out the window because I had no idea what the lights of the station or the forgotten lights lit up in the houses of the people.
But my curiosity made me look at the eye on the glass, not looking for something, but just not seeing the misery I was trying to look for in the minds of beautiful pictures that might have made me delight, so if I could live the real-life misery. Perfect human desires, often difficult to achieve but not impossible to imagine. And yet, through a will of effort, I succeeded.
Later on, the boss came, checked the ticket, and I waited for the cold in the compartment, but this one, with an outpouring air of superiority, but with a look of a tame man, tried to explain to me that the car was attached after the train and had no time to warm up because of the cold outside, and that I should have a little patience.
His answer made me very sick that in a few words I sent him out of the compartment, thinking about who to cry for such an infernal journey. But I slowly went back to my vegetative state, thinking of other things.
I was sorry I did not take a bottle of vodka with me to warm up from time to time. However, the train did not have a restaurant car, as it was not necessary during the night, so the boss had responded to me, which, of course, made me indignant, but anyway it was too late to do something plus that I was going at an interview, and what it would mean to smell the drink.
The noise of the train wheels itself was jerky and steady, but from time to time there was a long whistle of the locomotive, so I woke up to reality.
In the morning I get a phone call from the person I’m about to meet and support the interview. She wondered what time I arrived in Timisoara. But my voice seemed rather cold and unfriendly, I thought I was mistaken, but I said I would find the answer to this question a few hours later.
Finally, I arrived in Timisoara, the weather was beautiful and the peak, the outside was warmer than it had been all night in the compartment, and what seemed to me most curious was the fact that everything was dry without snow, which I enjoyed thinking, what beautiful photos will I do.
I was very happy to get out of that compartment, miserable and awkward by the train, and I was able to breathe again a fresh air, a “west” air, giving me the courage to believe that all the bad was good, and that the step that I did was not useless, thus reassuring me in my confidence. We hoped to be fine, but what was going to happen is very difficult to describe.
I was expecting a guy in front of the garage with a company car, not even guessing that that guy would be the character he was going to give the interview to, so once in the car the interview actually started.
I opened my mind, with a slightly higher language than usual, I tried to hold a conversation, I am absurd from my point of view, about all sorts of things I did not care about to not seem snob to him and to maintain as much as a pertinent discussion.
I was asked if I stayed in Timisoara the next night, I replied that I would, but I do not know if I will find a place to stay. He conveyed to me that there are no places of accommodation in the city, the hotel or the hostel due to concerts and the great flow of people from that period. Clean up bad luck for me. So I did not know what to do but to go if I could get that night and to stay on the streets, it was not my kind. It was the first signal to me that I was not wanted at that company, otherwise they, as good Christians, would have taken care of finding a hotel rest before I arrived in Timisoara.
Finally, I said that after the interview, I will go to Bucharest with the first train to which I will be able to take my ticket. Frankly, he could have been a good host to get me a return ticket at least, but it was not like that. This raised another big question mark. I did not say anything waiting to see on my own skin what other great unpleasant surprises will happen.
We got to the company. Though it was not too big, the building I entered was beautiful, but it seemed like interior arrangements seemed to me unfriendly, unhealthy or even ugly about the critical architecture, but I did not comment in any form so as not to be considered a bad person.
I was walked through all the offices, feeling like a cat coming from Bucharest, or as like ET in science fiction movie. They may have done so with the good intention of being known by future colleagues, or at least I hope so.
We got to the room where the interview was about to take place. After more than 2 hours of waiting, there was another person who once joined the company and what I had to do in the company and that I was going to be assigned to the IT department. Anyway, it was my advantage, although I was not asked anything. But they did not know that I was a construction engineer, and that I had done many years of construction, and later I became an IT analyst after graduating from a university and a master, so was like a hobby for me, and why not for later to be a practitioner.
But as any host that respects I was not even served with a glass of water coming in after many hours of train, which I could not overlook, again creating a big sign question. I understand they did not like me and they did not want me, but why bother me and humiliate me like that? Maybe because of my special training or maybe I do not want to ruin certain games? The future was to decide.
In the end they accepted my entry into the company, equipped me with a computer and a phone call to deal with the shops in Bucharest with another colleague, and some papers in which my job was written, as if I had come from another planet and I did not know what to do.
I left, the guy who took me from the station took me to the center of Timisoara, so I can get out of there. Thinking about the newly created situation, what should I understand, the gesture of elegance with which I was treated, or the step taken by myself in the hope of a better life, was in fact a total failure? Or maybe, why not both?
Anyway, I felt abandoned as a street man, in a city I did not know too well anyway, I felt ill due to their unnatural behavior towards me, or more like a forgotten wreck at sea wearing windless wind to an unknown dry.
The impression was, however, that I played poker like a wrong card, which would have followed me looking for another job in a short period of time and getting rid of the dark area of the obscure company I was entering.
I went out of town looking for a travel agency to get my return ticket home, possibly eating something at a fast food and drinking some juice. The truth is that food can suffer but without drinking water, not.
Obviously, I did not find a ticket to the agency, telling my clerk there that I can only find two hours in the train station just before leaving the train. Of course I did not give up thinking that I was born in the bull’s sign I will never surrender to the negative impulses accumulated both during the night and the day and if I lost a battle does not mean that we lost the war. I was wondering how rhetoric I had received under the belt that day?
I did not give up, but I was stressed, I took some pictures on my way, because Timisoara, the town of martyrs, the town where the Romans began to revolt on December 16, 1989, the city where democracy was first wanted, deserves much more attention than the mosquitoes that have made me that day a handful of miserable employees, going to leave totally disappointed with the situation.
I ate something on the road, drank some juice as I had proposed, went to the train station, guided by an inner self-conscious force and the adrenaline gained on that day and the confidence in me that until the end I will achieve what I have proposed. I found a ticket to a night train, and history would be repeated.
I had the chance to find the heated compartment this time, which has further mitigated some of the other gaps.
After this sad episode of life, I wonder what will be in the coming days, which defensive techniques and strategies will I adopt in order to preserve my soul integrity?
The answer I found was given by
“Sun Bin-in the famous book Nobile Art of War “:
“Retrieving at the shelter of the night, such as a cicada that leaves the shell, is a means to overcome the opponent. In order to face a lightning attack, a light intervention force, made up of specially prepared warriors, is used.”
My question is: Who is the opponent? If I can deal with it and if I can really deal with what I have proposed?
However, the strategies I knew…
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