Spellbound

I was down-in-the-mouth about having to go to the Department of Motor Vehicles. I had a parking permit for the handicapped zone from the state I just moved from and although I could have hung onto it, I was paranoid of what I would incur financially if stopped by law enforcement in that state and they read on my driver’s license I lived elsewhere. I chided myself that it would be a quick visit. All that had to be done was a clerical task on the digital screen and shred of the parking placard.

I knew they processed all kinds of paperwork all day long – a boring job to me, but it paid their hourly wages and met their mysterious need for rules and regulations and, essentially,  I was doing them a favor by getting this doner. Begrudgingly,  I decided to check it off today’s to-do list.

I stood inside the push-open glass door for a few seconds. The steady hum of conversations matched the radio volume in my car and though the air was a bit stale, it wasn’t thick with the after scent of antibiotic sprays used by governmental establishments to avoid authentic clean-up of messes.

About twenty people were seated in the trash-can gray painted room. They sat in black plastic chairs arranged in rows in the open space in front of the plexiglass sheets that protected each clerk’s cubical from other people’s covid-19 breath. The environment felt easy like the quiet efficiency of a pop-up street taco shack and I had the confidence it wouldn’t be long until I saw a clerk for my “short” transaction.  I  slid out a numbered coupon from a parking meter looking device on my right and ambled over to one of the open seats in the farthest row from the entrance.

Opposite me sat a thin woman in her early twenties dressed in non-descript arm length black shirt and pants. Her knees rounded uninstructively above ho hum tennis shoes which laid flat on the gray and white speckled linoleum. She sat tall in the chair with hair pulled straight, tight, and flat behind her ears. Both of her hands held her phone just like everyone else in the room.   Everyone, except me, that is. I had left my phone in the car due to my “quick” fix and I had wanted to talk with someone to pass the time until my number was called but there was nothing I could casually comment on to start a dialogue. She was like a blank spot on a page. I shook my head, sinking a bit more into my chair.  Welcome, I said to myself, welcome to the zoned emptiness of governmental processing.

 I checked the numerical counter on the wall and saw I had to wait four more numbers to get my turn. Wondering if my chore was worth all this waiting, I noticed a man, also dressed completely in black, who stood by a counter top on the opposite wall of the cubicles. He looked up and down at the digital counter and his coupon. He, like phoneless me, cast his gaze about the room. Then, without notice, one of the clerks left her spot behind a  glass panel and walked before me to his side. I couldn’t hear what was said but she motioned with her arm for him to move farther away from a trash can and a stack of books on the shelf. He moved. She returned.

A number was called and the couple seated next to the blank lady, got up, leaving their chairs. A man from behind me immediately took one of them. He was tan, built big, bearded and wearing a black leather vest. There were emblems emblazoned on it and colorful tattoos down his arm. I asked him about them, noting the parts I liked but midway in explaining the death of his sister, his number was called. We both nodded to each other as he parted our company.

Then a couple, both in the same age bracket as the blank lady, sat in those two empty chairs.

That’s when it happened.

The silent self-involved woman lifted her head as the man showed her items on his phone. I was stricken by her rich cinnamon eyes. The black pepper irises danced as he spoke to her. That’s when I noticed her long eyelashes and how they flattered her high cheek bones with mini-curtsies. She tipped her head sideways as he whispered into her ear. Magically her wisps of hair loosened and flared to a reddish shine. They widened and cupped the  outside contour of her face like women smiling in the wind of a new car commercial. Her stiff-lined lips curved upwards now, sweetly melodic like a swirl of frosting on a cupcake. Her whole body softened and molded as though within the hands of a baker. The bland nothingness of her clothing became sleek black velvet, a moth turned butterfly.

I leaned back . It didn’t matter how long it would take to have my number called. I watched this couple’s effect on each other,  mesmerized. He, also dressed in black, leaned over to the other woman on his other side and exchanged words and looks. His smile was confident and sure, a man who had a full quiver that did not detract from any of the rhythm sent to our main lady.

She continued to beam elegantly and steadily like a silent ruddy rose in bloom in a secret meadow under a full summer moon. She knew his allegiance and admiration was pure and its radiance not irascible. It not only swept through her and  me but rolled down the aisle of chairs. Those who poured over their phones missed it, but I, the one whiteout a phone, saw it all. I didn’t want them to leave their chairs. I didn’t want to leave before them either. I wanted to absorb this inner sweetness delivered with such humbled fare for as long as possible.

I glowed: inside this day of a mundane chore lies a garden of Eden.