Red Hot Chili Peppers – Gigography
Live in Indjija
Right next to us, there were two young people standing, both in their twenties, a girl and a guy, who was probably her boyfriend. As I had nothing else to do and feeling too weak and out of my mind to start up a conversation with my roommate, I subconsciously scanned the bus and all the people in it, but it seemed like those two were interesting enough to attract my attention. I couldn’t pretend I was deaf, even if I wanted to, so I was forced to listen to their conversation. It turned out that was a good thing to do as their silly talks brought a smile right back to my face.
-I’ve told you, you should have come with your car. None of this would have happened. We would be perfectly dry and probably home by now. Why don’t you ever listen to me? – said the girl temptingly – The concert wasn’t worth it! If I was smart enough I would have had stayed at home! Well at least you should have told me you’re not going with you car, that could have changed my mind!
-Oh, come on! Don’t blame me for the rain – he said, half jokingly – I like it this way, it’s certainly more interesting. Like an adventure! I like adventures! Besides, I’ve told you I won’t go with my car and that was the right decision. Did you see for how long have people been looking for their cars at the, so-called, “parking lot”?
-Adventure my ass! I don’t care, really. We would have been dry at least. And not like this… I’m all wet, you know, I could easily get pneumonia. I know that’s what’s going to happen to me! I’ll have to go to the hospital as soon as we get to Belgrade!
-I am wet too, so stop complaining! Everyone is. And your “what if” attitude won’t help. You can’t change anything now. And besides, I’m happy with the way things turned out.
It became obvious that he’s been teasing her, but she couldn’t notice that because she’s been too busy complaining and she just couldn’t stop. So from funny sitting near them quickly became so very annoying. In her low pitched voice that could only get on one’s nerves, she kept talking about pneumonia and how she’d get ill and how he could have done this or that and blah, blah…
-Oh, my god – my roommate said quietly – I am so going to tell her to shut up, I can’t listen to this crap anymore.
-Nay – I shook my head smiling – She is beyond help, I’ll tell you that. Not anything or anyone can shut her up…
I looked through the window and saw nothing but raindrops, there were so many of them. It was still raining, but it looked kind of peaceful, there were not a lot of people on the road and all the horror seemed to be coming to an end, but maybe it only looked that way to me because I was safe. Our rescue bus was filled with a pleasant murmur – everyone’s been talking and from my point of view any talk was more interesting than that of a strange couple standing next to us – she’s been still complaining but my ears have already learned how to filter her voice out, so I heard just a distant buzz and it sure felt better that way.
A lot of times, the driver would just stop the bus and opened its doors, like stopping at a station on a regular driving day, which caused a huge amount of cold air enter inside and was followed by ‘close the fucking doors you maniac, we’re freezing!’ kind of shout. It really was freezing, with or without him opening the doors, because there was no heating, or the driver simple wouldn’t turn it on. I couldn’t stop shivering during this trip and it took us nearly two hours just to get to the turning point. When we finally reached it, and when the driver turned around, now heading toward the train station, we all screamed in excitement, exclaiming “You’re the man!” to the driver. And all of a sudden, people started getting into a good mood: they became louder, their voices sounded relaxed, and we could hear some random talks about some random stuff – totally unrelated to this day, or its consequences… We’ll be home soon! My roommate was not informed about what was going on, as she was trying to sleep and couldn’t care less about observing the people in this bus, she looked up and said:
-I just want this to be over. I know this will be over. I just want it to be over. And I want tomorrow so I can talk about today like about yesterday, I just don’t want to live through any more of this. It will be so cool to talk about this once it’s over. I miss our messy dorm room and everything about it, even though I’ve never thought I’d say that.
-But hey, he turned around! How’s that! It’s not a big traffic jam this way so we’ll get there very soon. And look – I said pointing out the window – The rain just stopped.
-Wow, cool – she said, still being kind of absent – So, when does the next train leave?
-I’m not really sure. But I think I read somewhere that they would be sending trains to the various directions every 15min after midnight, until they transport all of us home.
It’s been good to know that waiting for a train wouldn’t be another thing we’d have to worry about. Still, I felt guilty, thinking how if we waited for the rain to stop or if we continued our way toward the station without entering this bus we would have been either dry or home by now. We certainly wouldn’t have been freezing as much. When I gave it a second thought, I realized that this bus did no good to us, it was just a shelter we found to hide from the rain, but because we were already soaked finding one wasn’t crucial at all.
-Maybe we should have… – I decided to share my thoughts with my roommate
-No, don’t start! ‘What if’ is something we’re not supposed to be thinking about!
Yeah, she was right, but I couldn’t help analyzing all the possible decisions we could have made and the way those would have affected our situation. No matter how hard I tried to blame everyone and everything else, in the end, it all did depend on us.
Soon enough the bus came to a stop and the driver opened its doors without saying anything. We have not been sure if we were on the location yet, and all the questions aimed to the bus driver stayed unanswered. Then, all of a sudden, people started leaving the bus, and so we did the same, asking each other if we were even near the train station, but it seemed like no one around us knew the answer. When we left the bus and stepped on to a dark road, I realized it was still raining and it was much colder as well. However, no one made a big deal out of it as we were getting home. Following our ‘friends by necessity’ from the bus, we somehow got to the train station after a few minutes’ walk, even though at first, no one knew which direction to go. There, however, instead of a train we badly needed, a very unpleasant surprise awaited us. People were all over the place – I think I have never ever seen so many of them in my lifetime. I begin to wonder where all the trains were, and a terrible thought crossed my mind: what if this part of the organization failed as well? And, to my horror, it looked exactly like it.
As we were making our way through the crowd, constantly pushing people around as they’ve been standing all too close to each other for anyone to pass through, we tried to find out if there will be trains leaving for Belgrade any time soon. No one knew the answer and all the feedback we’ve got was helpless shrugging. I knew something was wrong as there were just too many people, which was impossible if they have been sending trains as they promised they would. Obviously, they didn’t. What we wanted to do is find a shelter from the rain even though it wasn’t raining too heavily… Well, certainly not like what we experienced a few hours back.
People kept pushing us back: “There is no where to go this way. They’re not letting us inside”. Somehow, we managed to reach a small area that had a roof. People were standing so close to each other that you could actually feel their warmth and it felt nice, although I was still freezing and shaking like crazy. Looking around I could see happy couples everywhere; guys have been taking their wet shirts off, hugging their significant others, trying to warm them up. I wished I could feel that. A guy who probably caught my wandering, confused look approached and locking my eyes half jokingly said to us: “Girls, you’re freezing I’d give you my shirt if it was dry. As a matter of fact, I’d give you anything dry, but I have nothing. Alright, I have handkerchiefs…” I will never forget that. I looked back at my roommate; we both laughed and entered into a conversation that would, as we later concluded, save us.
- What about the trains? – I started clumsy, trying to keep him around for a little bit longer
- I have no idea – he replied – While I was on the train to get here…
And his story went on and on. I absorbed every word he said, not believing we have found someone ho was in such a good mood and who was actually able to transfer all of his good vibes to us. Shortly after, we started making jokes about the weather, the organization, and everything that has happened here in Indjija, moving to other themes that had nothing to do with this day and those really helped us fully relax. We really needed each other, and the fact that we got together and started a conversation among all these people was a real miracle. He was a cute guy, I’d guessed somewhere in late twenties, he had that positive attitude towards everything that just blows you away, always looking at the bright side of things (even if there were none), laughing and making funny jokes with that wide, silly smile on his face. He had every single characteristic we needed to help us keep our presence of mind reminding us how you should never get discouraged, no matter what. He is a great person, and I can’t help admiring him. Without him we would have been completely lost in that huge area with all these strange people that have been looking only after themselves – heh, talking about fight for survival!
Anyway, he had no more information than the rest of us, mere mortals. We had yet to wait for the train that would get us out of here, and that was, by the way, supposed to be here some two-three hours ago! But, we had each other now, which improved the odds for survival.
