At the Registry of Motor Vehicles

Yesterday I had to produce my driver's license for ID and discovered it had expired several months ago--so today I went over the hills and far away to the Registry of Motor Vehicles, where I sat on a bench and finished Luís Cardoso's The Crossing (lovely, moving, informative--more later, or elsewhere) as I waited.

An old couple were sitting in the bank of benches in front of mine, and the wife was coughing dreadfully--exhausted, harsh coughing. Then a man came out from behind the hidden counte...