The Revolution, When It Begins by Douglas R. Turek

The Revolution, When It Begins

by Douglas R. Turek

The wait was long, always long. Harry Radclyffe stood uncomfortably, gently and absentmindedly shifting his weight from foot to foot. He was surrounded by people in a similar state. They were all waiting in line to renew their drivers' licenses.

"Next." The woman behind the counter barely spat out the word. there was no malice in her voice, only tedious indifference to the crowd before her. She sat on a high stool, giving the illusion to those in line that she was, like them, standing. Harry groaned lightly. Why, he thought, must the wait be so interminable if the line isn't that long. It felt to him as if he'd been there an hour already. He looked at his watch and discovered that he had been there an hour. An hour of his life wasted away. Is this why I pay taxes? Is this the future I read about as a kid? Am I a citizen of the future or a cog in a barely tolerated wheel?
Harry began to fidget. He had, in fact, fidgeted seven times in the past hour. A scratch of the wrist, a reshuffling of the contents of his coat pocket, a heavy indrawn breath, and a slow, exasperating sigh.

"Next." Again with that word. It didn't even mean anything. It was as if the woman had nothing in her mouth but a bunch of 'next's and she let them out at a regular interval. Harry looked up. He was second in line. The man in front of him was older, maybe in his fifties. Hard to tell when you're behind someone. The man was fidgeting. Everyone fidgeted in situations like this.

The man being waited on was perhaps in his thirties. He was asking questions. He sounded like he had no idea what he was doing. He probably didn't. The woman was telling him something about how he needed to stand in another line, at the other end of the wide room. Good for nothing idiot. He wasted precious time. Time that could have been saved. Time multiplied by the number of people in line. A lot of time. How many people were there in line, anyway? Harry gave a fidgety pivot on his left foot and glanced behind him. The line was a good twenty people strong. Harry turned back in time to see the man in front of him get waved on to the area where they took your picture for a new license.

"Next." This time the word had meaning for Harry. He stepped forward to the counter.
"Name." Same toneless quality as the 'next'. Should've known, thought Harry.
"Harold Radclyffe."
"Address?" She clicked away at her computer keyboard, not even looking at him. I am, thought Harry Radclyffe, a mere cog, after all. She's barely aware of my presence. I could say I'm from the moon and she'd probably ask me what zip code it was. Harry supplied the lady with her requested information.
"Social security number?" He answered, despising his having to supply a beaureaucrat with a number assigned to him by more beaureaucrats. In the eyes of the machine, I suppose I'm just numbers and other data.
"Height?" Height was one thing. She followed it up with his weight; personal, to say the least. Then came the last straw to twist Harry's button, or some such metaphor.

"Eye color?" Idiot woman! Was she blind? He was standing about a two feet away from her. That wasn't the point, though. Harry had beautiful lavender eyes. His wife had first noticed him because of his eyes. He had always been proud of his eyes. It gave him something that stood him apart from the rest of the crowd. Comparisons to Liz Taylor notwithstanding, it made him a little bit more unique. This woman before him could not be bothered to think of people like him as human beings. We're all cattle here, thought Harry. I don't have much, I may not be a body-builder or a genius, but I have my eyes. And my pride.
It pained him a little to lie about that which he was proud of, but the government didn't care. The government of senators and presidents and judges was no more, just so many stories he had heard as a child in school. This woman behind the counter, with her indifferent clicking on her keyboard, was the real government, and the real government didn't give a damn what color eyes Harry Radclyffe had.
"Green. Light Green." He almost expected her to look up and check, but she did not.

"Okay. To your left. Wait for your picture." So it was that simple, thought Harry. I just told a lie to the government. He went over to his left and sat down in a plastic chair done up in institutional pale green. He heard the woman behind the counter let out her next 'next'.
Fifteen minutes later, Harry Radclyffe looked at his brand new driver's license. It said that his eyes were "Lt Grn." In the picture, Harry looked better than he ever had on any of his licenses. I thought, thought Harry, that you weren't even supposed to look good in these things. But Harry looked good. Maybe it was his broad grin, or the faint twinkle in his beautiful lavender eyes.