The morning wind was still a bit cool, and I sat in the back seat of my colleague’s electric car, looking at the shadows of the trees on the side of the road that were rapidly retreating, but my heart was in a hurry. In order to catch up with the light rail that allowed me to clock in on time, I cheekily asked my colleague to pick me up for a ride. The wind was howling in my ears, and I was secretly glad that I had a car, and now I should be able to catch up with the train steadily.
When I arrived at the light rail station, I almost jumped out of the car and trotted all the way into the station hall. At this time, the roar of the train entering the station was faintly heard in the distance, which was the movement of hope - the car was coming! As long as I scan the code quickly to enter the pit, even if it’s just for a minute, I can squeeze in like a hero at the last second before the door closes.
I stopped in front of the ticket vending machine out of breath, took out my phone, called up the payment code, and aimed it at the scanning port.
With a “drop”, the screen lit up, but what popped up was not “Please select the number of votes”, but a colorful interface. First, a “fake payment” advertisement pops up, and after avoiding it, it prompts “Please register first”, and the agree agreement is written very small, but you must score points to register. My heart tightened, and my fingers quickly clicked “close” and “skip” on the screen. Finally turned off the ads, it jumped out to authorize the mobile phone number, and then the verification code.
As I anxiously entered the verification code, I looked up at the security checkpoint, where I could already hear the announcement of the train stopping. My fingers began to disobey, and the more urgent I became, the more chaotic it became, and the screen switched back and forth between “member login” and “new user registration”, as if they were deliberately playing tricks on me.
Finally, after a series of suffocating actions, the interface jumps to the payment page. I almost poked it hard and clicked “confirm payment”. As soon as the prompt sounded for successful deduction, I didn’t have time to breathe a sigh of relief, but a line of words popped up on the screen: “The operation has timed out, the order has been canceled”.
At that moment, I was stunned. I looked up and saw several passengers hurriedly passing through the turnstile over there, and the warning sound of “the train is about to close” came from the radio.
Immediately afterwards, the phone vibrated, and a text message notification popped up: Your refund has been returned.
What an ironic “timely rain”. My money was refunded, but I had no time at all. I didn’t give up and looked at the machine that was still spinning in circles on the homepage, turned my head and rushed to the turnstile next to me, thinking about scanning the code directly to enter the station. I pointed my phone at the QR code of the turnstile, and the screen popped up again “Please download the APP of so-and-so City Pass” or “Register with the mini program”. In the registration interface, the option of “enable password-free payment” is checked by default, and you have to check the line of user agreements that are too small to see clearly.
At that moment, a deep sense of powerlessness surged into my heart. In this era of so-called “smart mobility”, I feel like I’m trapped in an invisible digital maze.
I stood at the gate like this, my fingers hanging in mid-air, watching the APP still loading in circles, and listening to the sound of the door closing in my ears. The voice was crisp and determined, as if laughing at my embarrassment.
Through the glass curtain wall, I watched as the train that I could have caught up slowly started. The lights cut through the dimly lit tunnel, and the figures in the carriage swayed, but I was blocked on the platform by a few lines of code, a few pop-ups, and a “password-free payment” checkbox.
The car went away, leaving behind an empty track and me with a frustrated face. In order to catch that minute, I tossed a long circle, but in the end I didn’t even touch the shadow of the car. Looking at the text message in my hand that the refund was successful, I could only smile bitterly, silently waiting in the morning breeze for the next train that came at some point.
Where is this a car, it is clearly a failed love affair with the machine.