“We’ll Be Back”

The DMV is the great equalizer—this I have decided with certainty. 

Outside, I hear, “Are you serious?!?” and “That’s what they told me, how could I be wrong?!” clank back and forth like swords and shields. Appointment, no appointment, they’ll crush your soul either way. The whole world is here. 

I check my ticket once, twice, a thousand times for fear that my sacred combination “F060,” the key to my salvation, hasn’t transformed into something like “F600” while I wasn’t looking, or worse, melted off the page entirely. Forget a coin in the mouth, this is modern fare across the river Styx.

I look at the queue board. There are at least another four people in front of me in line, or so I think. I am beginning to wonder if I need glasses. I can see every number but my own—why is that? 

A woman rolls her own chair through the door—she has been here before, I think. This is a place where you could ride in on a horse, and no one would notice.

I am standing. I felt rather able-bodied at first, but now the chair I gave up to someone with less collagen between their bones mocks me viciously. Stupid plastic chair. At the DMV, everyone’s body declines at an accelerated rate. It’s like being in space.

A man arrives. He marches up to the appointment line like a king, though he has no appointment or did, but it’s long past. 

“9:15!” he says. “MY APPOINTMENT WAS AT 9:15!”

Everyone TALKS LIKE THIS AT THE DMV!

It’s 11:00. 

“Poor fool,” we think. Secretly, we are satisfied. Who does he think he is, walking in here like that? 

There is one thing I do like about the DMV, though, and it is that “I” becomes “we.” We do not like people who do not follow the rules, but when in conversation about the rules themselves, we loathe them. On this, we can all agree—rule breakers and followers alike.

“WHO CREATED THIS SYSTEM?” we say. “WE’VE BEEN STANDING HERE FOR TWO HOURS!” 

A man and his partner walk by. 

He says, “We have to reschedule.”

His partner replies, “Did you negotiate?”

He says, “I DID!”

I find this rather funny. There is no negotiating at the DMV. I wonder about my queue number. The board claimed long ago that It’d be my turn. 

The board is a liar. 

Then, right before my knees lock and I fall to the floor, I hear “F060” over the loudspeaker. Finally. 

At window number 18, I compliment the teller’s glasses and joke about how I might need a pair myself. 

He doesn’t look up and replies, “Time to test your eyes.” 

‘Have mercy,’ I thought before reciting the two top rows of the Snellen chart with the good people of the DMV as my audience. What should be simple feels like being asked to recite The Odyssey from start to finish, dramatic pauses included. 

I passed, thank god.

“Eat more carrots,” the teller says as he stamps my paperwork and moves me over to booth 17—photo time. 

In this new crowd, we wait begrudgingly to have our photo taken. The woman at the front of the line has come prepared with an LED-lit mirror, makeup kit, and hairbrush. She turns to look at me and says, “I’VE BEEN WAITING IN THIS LINE FOR AN HOUR STRAIGHT!”

I say, “I JUST GOT HERE!”

The older lady in front of me says, “I’VE BEEN STANDING FOR THREE HOURS! MY KNEES HURT!”

“US TOO!” the good people of the DMV hum. 

Soon it’s my turn to have my photo taken. I get the weird twitch on the side of my mouth that I always do when smiling for pictures. The woman working the photo stand never gives me a warning. When I gather the courage to ask if she’s forgotten me is, of course, when the flash comes.

My photo is printed, and I am swept up by the herd and ushered out. I feel my soul being sucked out the door and into the light. Perhaps the DMV is where you go between passing on and being reborn. I imagine there’d be a lot of universal paperwork to fill out.

“I’m free, I’m free!” I think. “Goodbye, all!” 

Outside, I look at my printed photo to find my soul captured on camera like some sort of spectral tintype. Fear in my eyes, twitching mouth, and a crooked smile. Proof of this strange trip into purgatory that will mark time for many years to come until, inevitably, I am forced back.

“We will see you again,” says the DMV. 

Much like reincarnation, I know I’ll be back for some reason or another.

Maybe it’ll go by faster next time.

Then again, maybe not.