Four Hours in Line

I've stood in a lot of lines in my life, but never in one that started at four in the morning. My passport had expired, my sister's wedding in Toronto was five weeks away, and the website had no appointments until September. So one Tuesday, I joined the line outside the passport office with a blanket, a banana and a book I never opened.

There were already thirty people in front of me. At the very front sat a woman of about seventy in a long purple coat, with a folding chair and a notebook on her knees. Her name was Hermelinda, and she had been there since two. She had written down every person's name, in order, "so nobody gets confused when the sun comes up." I became number thirty-one.

Behind me was Cayetano, a tall, sleepy man in a gray suit who had to be at work by nine. He had brought a whole box of black pens. Years ago, he'd been sent home for filling out the form in blue ink. "Black only," he told everyone, and he passed the pens down the line like a teacher handing out an exam. By five, a student with a giant thermos was walking up and down, selling coffee in paper cups.

At about six, it started to rain. Nobody had an umbrella except Hermelinda. She opened a huge golf umbrella and called the oldest people in the line to stand under it with her. Somebody's radio was playing old love songs. People who had never met before were sharing cookies, phone chargers and stories about the worst trips they'd ever taken.

Then, at a quarter to eight, a young woman ran up with a baby on her hip and a folder of papers under her arm. Her father was very sick in another country, she said to nobody in particular, and her flight left that night. She looked at the long, wet line, and she stopped talking. Hermelinda opened her notebook. "I'm going to write this lady in at number one," she announced. "Does anyone object?" Nobody said a word. Then Cayetano raised his hand, and for a second I was sure he was going to complain. "She'll need a black pen," he said, and he gave her his last one.

At eight o'clock exactly, a guard unlocked the glass door and looked out at us: wet, tired, holding our pens and paper cups. And for no reason that anyone could explain, the whole line started to clap. I've stood in many lines since then. None of them has ever applauded.