Summer Revival
Trip to the DPS is interrupted by a solar flare
Welcome to Summer Lightning, a newsletter about story worthy moments in the every day
A character in this essay makes an appearance in Ghost Trees
Read about not-so-honorable jobs in Honor in The Machine
On the night before I was due at the DPS, I had seen a shooting star and wished for my appointment to renew my license to go smoothly. On the day of, I showed up at the moldy office with my newly acquired American passport and a respectable credit card statement that proved my address. It was the first available appointment in the morning, and the patrons seemed calm and orderly. My wish seemed like it would be fulfilled. My number was called to go to counter number 7. Lucky number 7, I thought. At the counter, I was greeted by the soft voice of a cherubic man. The softness of his presence contrasted with the bright lights and mustiness of the building. He looked at my hand and asked me for my application, and as I replied, "I applied online", I realized my mistake. I had gotten so familiar with filling out and submitting forms online that I thought my application would magically make its way to the DPS when I clicked submit. I had to print out the application and show up with it. The cherubic man assured me that I can just fill out a form quickly and keep my place in line.
The last time I went through this process was the first time I got my American drivers license. It was 6 years ago in Houston. My aunt's father-in-law agreed to teach me how to drive on the right side of the road in his early 90s Toyota Corolla, which did not have a backup camera. This already felt like a regression from driving my father's car in India and should have given me some pause about life in the United States. While we drove through the desolate suburbs of Houston, he narrated impressionistic anecdotes from when he moved to the United States in the 60s. He lived in Boston for a short while when he moved, so he naturally told me about the harsh winter months. Every South Asian person who moved to the United States before 1990 has a story about scraping snow from their windshields. Cars back then would simply stall in the cold winter months, he said. He got tired of the winter in Boston and moved to Pasadena, a suburb of Houston. The first couple of years were hard because his neighbors, some of whom were members of the Ku Klux Klan, did not want him and his family in the neighborhood. The Klan members pelted raw eggs at the house to show their displeasure. My aunt's in-laws traded scraping off snow for scraping off egg yolk off the windshield. At least the car did not stall. One time, while we were out driving, I recorded a couple of his anecdotes on my phone. I thought it would make a good impressionistic documentary about early Indian immigrants, but listening back to them, I realized most of the stories were just suffering without redemption. It seemed like nothing had happened in their lives other than suffering and surviving. There were hints of metamorphosis in his stories, but even those trended toward regression. He moved here with his family because of the promise of a better life, but all that had happened was that he had traded one kind of suffering for another.
I filled out the form and sat down at counter number seven again. The cherubic man sneezed and said it was the mold. I have the same problem - a mold allergy that developed after I moved to Texas. The cherubic man then asked for my passport. He leafed through the untouched pages then turned to me with a smile and asked if I had just become a citizen. I said yes, and he congratulated me. He typed in my passport number, and then his brow furrowed. The wrinkles on his forehead were uncannily harsh on such a soft face. It's clocking. I hope it does not mean what it means, he told me. Sensing that I had not heard him the first time, he told me again that it was clocking, and I figured he was referring to the infinite loading sign on the screen. I suppose you can say it is clocking since the loading sign moved clockwise with the forward movement of time. I hope that does not mean what he said again. What could it mean? Could it mean that my passport was not valid and that I have to be deported now? I asked him what it meant, and he replied that it meant the system may be down. A voice chimed in from counter 6. A female voice. It's clocking. I hope it does not mean what I think it means, the voice said.
Several moments passed, the system was still clocking, and then the cherubic man enquired if I had heard about the solar flares last night. I said no, but I had seen a shooting star. He said someone told him there was a huge solar flare last night. He wondered out loud if it might be affecting the system. It was rather curious that both the cherubic man and the woman from counter 6 knew that the infinite loading sign meant that the system was down, something that must have happened several times in the past for them to know intuitively what was happening, but he chose to blame it on the solar flare. You need a few magical beliefs to keep showing up to a job whose troubles were mundane and utterly predictable. I was sent back home with a new appointment set for the afternoon that day.
When I showed up for my afternoon appointment, the DPS was not the picture of serenity that it was in the morning. There were several old women in line asking the same questions at the help desk. I counted at least ten teenagers who had shown up with their parents to get their learners permit. Their excitement was at odds with the moldy environment. The wait was longer than in the morning, and I began wondering if I had made a mistake in rescheduling my appointment for the afternoon. It seemed likely that everyone else in the morning batch waited a little longer and got their tasks done. I was called to counter number 6. 6 is not a lucky number. The woman at counter 6 greeted me and so did the cherubic man from counter 7. He told me that everyone else from the morning had got their appointments rescheduled for next week. I got lucky because my angel, the cherubic man, had been aware enough to move my appointment before more commotion ensued. He was proof of physiological determinism of some kind, I thought to myself. Someone from the opposite side requested Robert look at something. Robert was the cheurbic man's name. It soon became apparent that he was just good at his job. He had the answers to his colleague's questions. He knew instantly what the clocking meant, and the magical beliefs helped manage his psyche. I was grateful for the cherubic man. The shooting star wish had worked.
I got my temporary drivers license. I have an ugly double chin on the picture. Now I keep touching my chin whenever I think about it.
