It was the 11th of June, 2016. Albania, my home country had just lost an important football match against Switzerland, in Lens, France. My father Samir Mane and I had traveled to France to support our football team. We had arrived in Paris the day before, and traveled to Lens via train the day of the match. After the disappointing match, we headed to the train station in order to return to Paris.

The train ride was about 1 hour and 30 minutes. The journey was going normally, and I was having a conversation with my father. Suddenly, the train stopped. We knew that it had only been about 40 minutes, so we hadn’t reached Paris yet. However, we thought that it was just a normal stop, in a small city in France, to pick up others that were on the way to Paris.

10 minutes into the unexpected stop, the conductor on the train finally made an announcement, in French. Since I didn’t (and don’t) speak French, I didn’t understand what the lady was saying.

However, once the lady finished her announcement many people on the train looked worried. That was when I realized that something was wrong.

An Albanian lady in the train with us said, “There is an anonymous luggage that hasn’t been claimed on the train, left over from a previous train journey.”

First of all, we weren’t worried at all.

“Okay,” my father said in a calm matter. “It is probably an Albanian who has forgotten his luggage on the train.”

I, however, was very scared. I imagined the worst case scenario that could happen. “What if the bag wasn’t left over by accident? What if there had been a terrorist, leaving the bag with a bomb inside, left to explode when the train is very populated?” I thought. The conductor made another announcement (in French, of course) to us.

“A ‘bomb squad’ of some kind is on the way, to check out the luggage and investigate,” translated the Albanian lady.

When the lady said this, I became even more scared, and wanted to exit the train. My father remained calm, but he understood that it was serious, too.

“Come on,” my father told me. “Let’s go outside. We’ll be fine.”

When we went to open the door, it was locked. We tried on both sides, and it was locked. “They locked us inside,” I thought. “They wanted all of this to happen.” At this moment, I was almost crying. Although I had no information about what could happen and what was expected to happen, the panic of the situation led me to believe that my father and I would die, along with all the people on the train. It was June 2016, so a few months before this incident, the horrific attack on Paris had occurred, where 150 people died. I imagined the bomb in the luggage exploding, and my life ending.
After about 10 minutes of fear and no information, the doors on the train opened. Immediately, I hurried outside onto the platform in the middle of nowhere. My father followed after me, and so did most of the people on the train. There was a woman on the train that was crying. From the front of the train came an overweight French man with a moustache. When he came closer, we understood that he was part of the train staff.

“Everything is fine,” spoke the man in broken English, with a heavy French accent. “Come back inside, everyone. The luggage was filled with some sports shirts and Albanian flags.”

I was extremely relieved that the man assured us that we would be safe. My father started laughing, and so did I. We headed back onto the train, and my hands were still shaking and sweating from before. The train finally started moving again, and we were back on our way to Paris. When we came back to Tirana, we told this story to the rest of my family, and they all laughed at me. If they had been there, I’m sure that they’d be as scared as I was.