The clock were striking six-forty, I scrubbed my sleepy eyes, sit up, dressed, washed and dashed out within ten minutes. A swirl of chilling gust instantly seized me, and forced me to quicken my steps for gaining more warmth. In the courtyard, the desolate scene penetrated everything filled with faded flowers and falling leaves.

  My chin nuzzled into my breast in an effort to escape the pungent stink of sewer in the gate of community. On the main road, the congested flood of cars, vans and buses came into sight again in the rush hour. I walked across road and joined the heavy flush towards the subway station. Along with the shabby wall written by socialistic core value-“democracy and freedom”, I caught sight of hordes of people in the winding glisten rails, where they inched forward towards the entry passively, one could read nothing on their faces except indifference or sleepiness. 

  Passed through the Ticket Entrance, I found the escalator was out of operation again. Many people were climbing arduously on the steps, some hobbled, some trudged and some run, but few questioned why the escalator failed to work well. Five times in a week for the damned escalator, I stepped on the step and moved upward slowly. On the end were two middle-aged women volunteers in yellow, who stood there erectly with forced smile on the angle of mouth. 

“Excuse me”, I approached them politely. 

“ Could you tell me why the escalator is always out of operation？” I asked 

My question instantly frozen their smiles, and one second later, a cold answer came at my ear. 

“No idea”. 

   As soon as I turned away in disappointment, I happened to catch the smile appeared again on their painted faces. 

   Nobody noticed the short conversation between volunteer and me because most commuters were gazing at their mobile phones. As though they only belonged to the palm gadget instead of the physical world, or they preferred to bury their heads in their own world.

   Finally, I gave a complaint on the subway customer service by telephone. Two hours later, the chief of subway station called me back. He kindly told me that the safety was the major reason to close the escalator, in which the heavy influx in the peak time would make platform more crowded, and accident may take place when too many people to cram in the compartment of tube. The way could slow down the commuter’s speed to enter the station, and gave more flexibility in the carrying capacity.    

   The plausible reason failed to convince me, and I retorted him why so many other subway stations did not take the measure in order to avoid such danger, why the designer did not consider such potential danger in the plan of subway station construction. Finally, I wondered whether they conducted the quantitative analysis between commuters’ influx and carrying capacity of tube, and concluded the most cost-effective measure.   

   Up to now, they did not give me a satisfied answer except the repeated patient and respectful explanation. For fear of heavy population, we have family control policy, for fear of traffic jam, we issued the even and odd number restriction, for fear of pollution, we say goodbye to barbecue. Maybe in the future, we have to give up breath and break wind for reducing carbon dioxide.