Sameer lowered his eyes as the officer yelled at him from behind the glass cage. “The document you want renewed is due today, and you come today!” Sameer lowered his head.

“What is wrong with you? This is the problem with today’s youth. No sense of responsibility.”

Sameer could feel his hands hardening into a fist, then curling into a ball. He had never wanted to hit another person as much as right now. The officer, voice now hoarse, took a sip from a cup to his left, the moisture from which had long stained the wooden table many times over. As the sip turned into a gulp, he took another look at Sameer’s document, stamped it, and threw it at him.

“Go to the other end and get in line there. Be fast. You only have a couple of hours left.”

Sameer lowered his head some more and muttered a halfhearted thank you as he picked his document from off the floor. He wished the officer would choke to death.

Dust danced all around the massive Government lot where Sameer found himself on a Monday afternoon. His throat felt scratchy, and he coughed a dry, heaving cough that came from some primal part of his body, coloured by fear. Everything had been alright yesterday. He was at a restaurant with his girlfriend, talking about the movie they’d just watched. She had been in a bad mood. He thought a movie would make her feel better, but with each piece of conversation he tried to throw on the table, none of it making a smooth landing, he soon realised that, no, the movie had not made her feel better. Food might.

She was quiet but trying to reply. She was quiet but tried not to make a fuss about it. She had thanked him as he hurriedly ordered some food for both of them as soon as the waiter appeared, telling him she wasn’t in the best mood, but she appreciated him trying to cheer her up. Sameer, heart welling up, reached across the table and cupped her hand. It’ll be okay. We’ll get some food and go home. Then you can rest. They smiled.

Then everything went downhill.

His smart watch buzzed. A notification appeared on the screen: Please be advised. The last day for your document update is tomorrow. Please make sure to update it lest you accrue a fine.

Sameer immediately withdrew his hand, but it was too late. She asked him what that was. He said it wasn’t anything. She asked him why he withdrew his hand, and that too so swiftly. He said, again, it wasn’t anything. She asked him if it was what she thought it was. Was it the document update? Was it the document update which she had told him to do months ago? Which he had told her, no, promised her he would take care of? That was too months ago?

Sameer couldn’t utter a word.

They sat in silence. The food soon arrived. They ate in silence. Sameer drove her to her place. In silence. Once they arrived, she got off his bike, turned towards him, and asked him to take his helmet off. He did. She slapped him and walked into her house. Slamming the gate in his face.

He had not heard from her since. Despite numerous texts and missed calls. That morning, he called work, told them he needed an off day for some official document stuff and drove all the way here. It had taken him multiple glances at the Map on his phone, asking shopkeepers for directions and even some slight traffic violations, but he was here now. Being yelled at. By a bunch of men and women who smelled like sweat, heat and bad breath.

Sameer made his way to the other end, as the officer had directed and saw a large crowd before him. The crowd, which had mutated from a long line, pushed and pulled against each other like a living sea. Sameer didn’t know where to stand, so he tried to ask but was soon swept into the crowd, pushing and pulling his way to the front. Someone yelled at him that that wasn’t his spot. Another tried to pull him to the back. More others tried to grab at him, his hair, his document, his pants, his limbs, his genitals, his face and swallow him whole, but Sameer kept pushing and pulling back.

Finally, he reached the front where another officer, looking like a picture-perfect doppelganger of the previous one, took his document.

The officer, a fan blowing towards him, the gusts of which only reached parts of Sameer’s face, giving him just a hint of relief before the warmth of the crowd behind and beside him tormented him again, looked over the document and tossed it back at him. It’s too late now. You need to pay the fine. Sameer protested, but before he could say anything more, the crowd, knowing his turn was over, pushed him back and spat him out.

He was on his back, on the ground, the document clutched in his fist. He got up, dusted himself and tried to get into the crowd again, but the crowd had learned. It would not let him in.

After a few more minutes of trying helplessly, Sameer gave up and tried to find where he could pay the fine and get this over with. He walked from one end of the lot to the other, but he could find no directions, no signs, or any information. He went to a nearby shop and tried to ask, but the shopkeeper just laughed at him. He went to other people walking around the lot, but they seemed as lost as him. He tried to look up the information online, but the pages wouldn’t load. There was nothing he could do but cry.

And he did for what seemed like hours. The tears kept coming and coming until they couldn’t come anymore, and his eyes were sore. Finally, once he felt better again, better enough to lift his head up, he looked around and saw hundreds, no, thousands more, on the ground, crying, just like him. Enough. This is too much. He’d had enough. He went to each and every one of them. Man, woman and children and told them how this was insanity. How could we let these bureaucratic leeches try to bully them around? Most of them kept crying, but a few of them agreed. Soon, Sameer had amassed something like an army and started marching towards the main office. We’re going to burn this down, he said.

Before he could, the guards who had called the police, who had called the army, started firing guns in the air and chasing the crowd, which quietly quelled and filed themselves into their respective lines, leaving Sameer alone in the middle of the lot.

One of the army officers walked up to Sameer. On his knees, Sameer told the officer that all he wanted was to simply update his document. The officer reached out his hand and asked for the document. Sameer gave it to him. After taking a brief look at it, the officer simply said, “The document you want renewed is due today, and you come today! What is wrong with you? This is the problem with today’s youth. No sense of responsibility.” Sameer lowered his head.