The Ticket

By E Ryan Janz

In this short story cloaked in mystery, a man rests on his side, completely devoid of any feeling in his body. He cannot move. He cannot speak. He cannot even dream. Nor can he begin to remember who he is or why any of this is happening - but he will.

• Language: English
• Publisher: E Ryan Janz
• Release date: Jan 17, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005259266

E Ryan Janz

My name is Ryan Janz and I’ve not posted my photo on social media in the fear I’ll be recognized and therefore mobbed by crazed fans. Let’s say I’m walking my dog down Main Street, USA, and the unthinkable occurs:1. I am breathlessly asked by a passerby to autograph my captivating novel, The Desperation of Harry, or I’m pretty sure that’s what he said.2. He doesn’t have a copy, or as he put it, “I’ve never heard of your stupid piece of trash and you frighten me”.3. I give him one I happen to be carrying in my wheelbarrow.4. He doesn’t believe I wrote it.5. I produce my driver’s license for proof, careful to cover my picture so as not to be recognized and therefore mobbed by crazed fans.6. He threatens to call the police.7. My dog insists we leave, and I lower my baseball cap because I do not wish to be recognized and...etc.8. I hear police sirens and while hiding below my basement trapdoor my dog decides to move out.9. While perusing a book chock full of fun survival techniques, it occurs to me I don’t own a dog.10. Having read how baked rat can be transformed into a healthy snack while overthrowing the government, a dog howls in the distance, reminding me it’s time once again to collect my wheelbarrow and rejoin my best friend for a pleasant walk down Main Street, USA.

Book preview

The Ticket

I found a ticket.

It lay simmering a mere five feet away, beckoning even the most distracted of bystanders to rescue it from any number of calamitous fates. Yet as spontaneous as I liken myself to be, it nevertheless gave me pause. For I ask myself; what manner of paper lay delectably beyond my grasp? If a winning lottery ticket lies in the offing, overdue bills vanish and future purchases become inundated with hard cash. Said cash also attracts women, a sex predisposed to converting cash into things they crave and then things to replace their recently purchased, but now sadly outdated things. Might there also exist opportunity for accumulating property, sought after acreage in desirable neighborhoods? Perhaps a stylish multi-winged beachfront mansion for instance, thereby allowing suitable accommodations in which to store the aforementioned women. Yes, one's imagination might run wild until Doomsday or at the very least, until Doomsday Eve.

Cavorting along a prospective sandy beach notwithstanding, I further studied my potential life changer in the guise of this innocuous document, with its ever-shifting color scheme reflecting the painted canvas of the volatile sky above. Majestically sweeping across the bluest of milieus ascends an intense golden sun, while puffs of white cotton clouds bestow agreeable contrast before adjusting shades to a foreboding gray, in turn supplanted by an even more menacing charcoal black. I wonder if within some distant