Your
Wrist Please Roger Said the Ticket Man
by Zach Smith
Roger was a relatively good
person, living a relatively good life, making a
relative difference in relatively many lives…
and then he died. The story could have ended
there and would have been relatively boring, but
the most interesting thing about Roger’s
life happened afterward.
He found himself standing
before an immense castle, surrounded not by grass
but by clouds, with a golden gate just as you’d
imagine. What you might not imagine was the
ticket booth beside it.
“Am I at the right
place?” asked Roger.
“Yes, Roger,”
said the Ticket Man. “We’ve been
expecting you.”
“I thought there’d
be more people.”
“They’re on the
other side,” said the Ticket Man. “Right
through the gates. You’ll see things you
never dreamed of, and people you haven’t
seen in years, decades even. People you’ve
forgotten but will remember the moment you set
eyes on them.”
“What about past girls?”
Roger wasn’t “perfect.”
The Ticket Man knew exactly
what he meant.
“They’re in there,
and everyone in there gets along. Even they.”
“You sold me,”
said Roger. “I’ll head in.”
“Wait just a minute.”
“What is it? Not
allowed in?”
“No no, nothing like
that.”
“Then what?”
“Your wrist, please,
Roger,” said the Ticket Man.
“What do you want my
wrist for?”
The Ticket Man pulled out a
paper wristband, the kind Roger had worn at
countless events over the years, especially the
Color Guard competitions he’d gone to when
his daughter was young.
Roger stared at the
wristband for a long moment.
“No,” he said.
“No? What do you mean,
no?” asked the Ticket Man.
“I hate those things.
They’re so frustrating. I never get them
perfect, and the sticky part pulls on my arm hair.”
“I can put it on you
so it lines up right and doesn’t stick.”
“Even so, I’ll
feel it chafing on my wrist. It’ll bother me
the whole time, and as far as I know, the whole
time is forever.”
“There will be a lot
more to bother you in the other place.”
“Well, that may be,
but I ain’t going in there with one of those
wristbands.”
“You must wear the
wristband,” said the Ticket Man. “Everyone
wears a wristband.”
“Well, not me,”
said Roger. And he walked past the castle and
never looked back.
Soon enough, he came to
another castle, bigger, grander, nicer in every
way than the first. It also had a golden gate and
another Ticket Man, though this one seemed a
little friendlier.
“It’s a good
thing you didn’t put that wristband on,”
said the second Ticket Man.
“That’s how they
keep you in there. Once you put it on, you can’t
get it off.”
“He implied that place
was paradise.”
“To him it is, in some
way. He’s always trying to trick people
inside. This is the right place. Now, before you
go in, I’ll need you to put on this lanyard
with ID badge.”
“Oh come on.”
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