The Story of a Ticket

… and a Prophecy in Passing

I often feel as if the stories that happen to me are braided together by invisible threads. Maybe they’re the same stories everyone collects from time to time, but when they visit me, they shimmer with a peculiar significance.

I tell myself I’d like to be a writer full-time, to stay at home and sink into words. But if I did that, no stories would ever collide with me out there in the vast, unpredictable world. Today was proof of that: a day full of small adventures and quiet pleasures. Even waiting in a line for nearly an hour felt strangely delightful.

I love talking to strangers. I love observing the way they lean, smile, hesitate; guessing at their feelings, their reasons. I jot down their stories in a few strokes, the way a painter might sketch a quick croquis.

Like the enigmatic appearance of a man handing out waiting tickets to passengers in need of service, or a new ticket. The line was long, but he always brought only three tickets in a row, handing them to the waiting, then going hundreds of meters back to catch up with the new set of three.

This morning I had to find a court I’d never visited before. The whole errand felt like a scene from soft science fiction. I took the subway, memorized the map I had printed at home, and followed a narrow path covered in fresh…