We were heading down the stairs to the throbbing crowd of Swanston Street, next to a barrier that was dividing us from the long line bringing people up into the State Library. There was a crowd controller at the bottom of their line letting people through intermittently, presumably to stagger the crowd, letting their queue clear as they were taken up into the library, before the next group of people were allowed through.
That section of their queue heading into the library was the only area that cleared in, I’m sure, a 100 metre radius, in the middle of a sea of people for as far as the eye could see.
The barrier was made of shade cloth wrapped over metal uprights, but halfway up the steps dividing us and them the metal uprights seem to have disappeared, which allowed the shade cloth barrier to fall away to knee height, which made it easily step-overable.
And a couple of people behind us did just that, as the queue just over the barrier cleared waiting for the next influx of people to be let through.
Sam and I looked at each other, but decided we couldn’t do the same thing.
We took a couple of steps down the steps, but it was just gridlock in front of us, we simply couldn’t move. Suddenly, we were like sardines going no where.
If you had been claustrophobic, I’m pretty sure you would have had a problem.
So we turned back. “Step over,” I said to Sam. “We can’t move that way anyway,” I said pointing down the stairs. “What else can we do?”
So we took a step over the barrier, unfortunately, as it turned out, just as the next group of people were let through, filling the empty space like water into an empty receptacle. Suddenly there was a rat-faced, mop-haired middle aged woman standing next to us in the queue heading up the Library stairs.
“OH NO YOU DON’T” she cried furiously, a voice that could shatter glass. She pulled up the barrier like she would if her daughter’s knickers had fallen down in public. “We've been waiting for 2 hours," she screeched at us. She looked at us with a mixture of anger and abhorrence, we were the devil incarnate, you could see it in her eyes.
"Wait a minute and she'll be gone, I said to Sam, as Screeching Woman and I eye-balled each other. Oh, it was late and I was tired and we couldn’t move in our queue anyway. And my feet were starting to hurt, as was my back. Her eyes were huge by this point and she seemed to gasp for breath at my inflammatory remark. She stuttered... speechless.
Hell hath no fury like…
She kept looking back at us as she moved slowly up the stairs. If she’d bought two fingers up to her eyes and then pointed them back at me I’d not have been surprised.
We headed back down stream, until she was gone. But it was gridlock in front of us still, really we were shuffling ahead a millimetre a minute, if that. I was intimately acquainted with the back of the head of the person in front of me. We couldn’t move. So like salmon we headed back up stream to the weak spot in the barrier and hopped over, as the other people were all doing. Suddenly there was a flood of people coming over the barrier, like refugees into Europe.
“We’ve been waiting for two hours,” I said to Sam. And then chuckled.
The queue moved up the steps and inside steadily. We were inside in what seemed like a relatively short time, so much for two hours.
There were guides all the way along instructing us to keep moving.
“We’ve been waiting for two hours,” I said in Sam’s ear.
“Stop it,” said Sam.
Then we were at the doors to the library chamber.
“Move straight inside and take a seat,” said the guide by the door.
So we moved around the circular room and took our seat in two captain’s chairs.
I pointed out Screeching Woman to Sam, who’d just taken her seat before us. “We’ve been waiting two hours,” I said.
“Shhh,” said Sam.
I took a photo of her and showed Sam.
He pushed my hand away.
The show was gorgeous, under the sea. It played on repeat, so when it started again we knew it was time to go, to let the next group of people take our seats. We headed for the exit, blue light lead the way.
I got to the door just as the Screeching Woman did. Someone held the door open for her, she looked back to make sure the person behind her got through, you know, nicey pie polite, she had no idea it was me. Our eyes met.
Oh, I don’t know what possessed me, really I don’t. Call it the late hour, call it my warped sense of humour, call it what you like. But the next thing out of my mouth was, “We’ve been waiting 2 hours.” High pitched, in her tone, imitating her. Oh yes, I know, strike me dead and everything else.
Screeching Woman’s eyes expanded to huge in a millisecond. She gasped for breath, clearly not knowing what to say.
“YOU! YOU! YOU!” she stumbled. I thought her head was going to explode, her mop of hair quivered, like something out of Godspell. “It is people like you…”
The stairs across from the main exit door were in a shade of bluish darkness, and Sam and I disappeared down them quick as a flash, Sam moving faster than me, you betcha, so that the end of Screeching Woman’s sentence was lost to us. We headed into the art gallery halfway down the stairs and fortunately Screeching Woman didn’t follow.
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