“Now listen, I’ll wait for you down here, right here, you see, beside the ticket stand?”
“You’re holding my hand too tight mom!”
“Oh, oops, sorry”, she ruffled my hair, “you see the ticket stand? I’ll be right there, okay?”
“Okay mom”
“Wave to me when you get to the top, okay?”
“Cool it mom”
“You cruisin’ for a bruisin’ bean?”
“No…” She tilted my head up and kissed my forehead.
“I know you’re not, you clue me in when you get down, okay?”
“Are you sure you don’t want to come?”
“No, no, I hate heights, bean”
“Please?”
“No, I’ll have a kick watching you go up with your capsule!”
“It’s almost my turn”
“Go, go!”
“I love you mom!”
“I love you bean!”
I waved to mom and she blew a kiss. A man opened up my capsule and I jumped in. I looked for mom in the crowd but I couldn’t see her anymore. Closing my eyes, my imagination fluttered… I imagined being a bicycle wheel. I imagined never getting off. The capsule shook and flew off into the air… The wind blew in my face. The people down on the ground became little flecks as I grew taller and taller and distanced myself further and further away from the world. The breeze watered my eyes. I was half way to the top! Mom would be so proud! Suddenly, the Ferris wheel stopped. I looked around for a while… I stuck my head out of my capsule and searched for the ticket stand. I couldn’t see it but I waved anyway.
“Helloooo!” I yelled to nothing in particular, “is anybody there, there, there?” I echoed the ‘there’.
“Hello?” A feeling of loneliness enveloped me. I stuck my head out the capsule again, looking up to the next one over. I saw a scarf blowing out to the side, and some smoke. I reached my hand up to the metal bar beside my capsule and pulled myself onto the bottom of it. I almost lost my grip. Tirelessly, I pulled my whole body up. One foot over, last foot over, I entered the next capsule. In it, I stood before a guy my age. He reminded me of someone… He wore a red hat and he threw his cigarette over the railing.
“Let me guess… You’re goddam fed up with this crumby life?” he said.
“Wait… Who are you?”
“What?”
“You remind me of-
“Holden Caulfield?”
“Yes!”
“That’s because I am him”
“What?”
“I’m no phony”
“That’s funny…I’ve always thought that I was the real life impersonation of him…”
“Of me?”
“Of you”
I took a seat facing him, unable to believe what I was experiencing.
“If you want to know the truth, I’m much less deep in real life than in the book” he said.
“No, can’t be… J.D Salinger meant you to be-
“A goddam moron”
“No! On the contrary, Holden-
“You can call me lousy idiot”
“J.D Salinger-
“That sonuvabitch”
“Holden Caulfield isn’t like you though! He’s meant to be-
“Real? Filled with angst? Tender, depressed, sensitive… Running away from adulthood? Preserving his innocence?”
“Yes actually, but you made it sound dumb…”
“Because it is. It’s all just overrated crap, I’m nothing like that”
“That’s not true”
“Yes it is. That’s the point of the book kid! Life sucks, people are phonies and I’m just trying to pretend the world revolves around me”
I paused before protesting and thought… scrutinizing him… He looked oddly real… I kept thinking… I said:
“No you’re the mind of the seeker, you’re the ultimate-
“My ass, seeker”
“But you’re my favorite novel character…”
“I wish that could mean something more to me, I really do, if you want to know the truth. I depress myself… You know what?”
“What?” My eyes hardly rose to meet his.
“I’ll give you my hat, I was never fond of it”
“You can’t do that! It your favorite hat, it’s the one with the flaps, it’s-it’s legendary!”
“Not anymore”
“I don’t understand”
“J.D was fond of it… Not me”
He handed me his red hat with the flaps.
“Thank you…”
“You’re welcome” Loosely, a slight grin appeared at the corner of his lips. He seemed the same as I had imagined him. It was too much for me. I squeezed the soft worn fabric of the hat.
“It was so great to have met you… In person” I said.
He took out a cigarette and lit it.
“Goodbye” I said
“I don’t do goodbyes,” he said between drags.

With a forced grip onto the metal, I pulled myself up and swung onto the next capsule, rocking it violently. I needed to get to the top! First foot over, last foot over. In the capsule was a girl. She was a young woman; honestly, she looked to be my age. She was leaning over the railings, looking down. What intimidated me about her were her boots. They made her tall and lean and daunting... And the laces, they blew to the side, tied into long thin loops.

“You ain’t too skilled!” she said, “You shook the whole thing!”
“Sorry”
“It’s all cherry pie, dear, don’t worry!”
“Are those comfortable?” I pointed my chin toward her boots.
“Ah these! No…” She burst out into squeamish giggles.
“Then why are you wearing them?”
“You’re so silly, dear! Because I need to look taller!”
“Why?”
“I have no clue but I just do! You know that feeling when you don’t know why but you just HAVE to, right, dear!”
“Still… Those laces look too long”
“They are!”
“Do you know why the Ferris wheel stopped moving?”
“No clue!”
“Does it bother you how lonely it gets?”
“Nope!”
“I’m climbing the Ferris wheel”
“I know! I saw!”
“See this hat?”
“Yes I do!”
“It’s Holden Caulfield’s”
“Who’s that, sweetie?”
“You don’t know who Holden Caulfield is?”
“Am I supposed to?!”
“How can you not know?”
“Sorry, don’t ring a bell! Is he an important person?”
“Why?”
“If you want me to know him, he needs to be important!”
“He’s a novel character”
“I hate reading! Wait… Wait… He’s from a book, and, wait, he gave you his hat!”
“You don’t believe me?”
She stared at me as her cheeks filled with air and she exploded in high-pitch laughter. She held herself onto the railing, huffing and puffing, shaking in hysteria. I remember how one moment she was there, right in front of me and the next, I could see her falling down, down, down, like Alice through the rabbit’s hole, disappearing from sight, in the darkness of the night. For a while, I stood. Shocked. Bewildered. Relieved. She was gone. In my hands, I held her two boots.
“They were too big!” I said, laughing at my turn. Then, I pulled off the laces and stuck them in my pocket.
“Just too big!”

“Life is all a game of chess… Of moves… Right and wrong… Check-mate… Everything your opponents do is for a reason… You need to remember that… Sometimes you are defeated and sometimes, perhaps, you victor… However… In whatever consequence… Everything happens for a reason… And justice is there to rightfully execute the sins, immoralities and crimes of those who cheat the game…”
He was a hamster-like man, wrinkles and strains, probably my age. I looked him in his tiny squinting eyes. His voice had an eerie monotonous serenity to it… Quiet yet strong as a whip…
“I came to your capsule because I have a question,” I said.
“I could give plausible theories, I am a judge after all… And judges have good judgment…”
“Why did the Ferris wheel stop?”
“Everything has a logical explanation…”
“What’s the logical explanation for this?”
“The logical explanation is that something or someone stopped it… Logically… It could be anything…”
“Can you give me your theories?”
“Logical theories would say that it is of the nature of a technical difficulty… Or something along the lines of that logic…”
“How long have we been stuck up here… Logically?”
“Time is not logical… Time is relative to the observer and therefor causes the most evil…”
“Is ‘evil’ logical?”
“Judges suppress evil… And they sanction innocence… It is all in their hands... In a way ‘evil’ is logical since it can be annihilated circumstantially…”
“Do you have a watch?”
“As a matter of fact… I do… Unfortunately… The battery has been broken for days now… I have been meaning to fix it…”
“So you just wear a broken watch?”
“How can one be acceptable if not wearing a watch?”
“How is wearing a broken watch logical?”
“Everything has a reason… Reasons are logical… My reason is to be respectable. Therefor it is logical”
“Maybe you’re right… After all, you have been giving judgment for how many years?”
“Time is illogical… Therefor I do not keep track of it…”
“Then why did you want to fix a broken watch when you say knowing time is illogical?”
“Because… I need to have a convenient answer to time questions… Therefor… I need to know the time, factually… This…” he took out a medal out of his coat’s inner pocket, “is proof… That I am what I say I am… John Cooper Banks-Macintosh… Judge of the Court of Equity and Justice… Here… it is in your possession now…”
I took the golden medal and flipped in around in my hands…
“Will we ever get down?” I asked.
“Is that a logical question?”

I could see the next capsule, the one on the top of the wheel… It was only one climb away, one climb up and I could finally wave down to the ticket stand. I would finally get on the top of the Ferris wheel! I grabbed on the side metal, and gripped it routinely… Except for this time, my bones were weaker, it was harder, and I slid a bit. I persevered and with all the force I had left in my body, pulled myself up. One foot over, last foot over and in I was. An old and haggard bearded man sat in the capsule. His beard was white, like mine. He was probably my age. However he looked wiser than me.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I think I should be the one asking that question, my friend”
“What are doing here?”
“Don’t you mean: how can I possibly have acquired the money to come to a amusement park?”
“I guess, yes and no”
“Why, you think I’m homeless!”
“Well aren’t you?”
“No!”
“Well, what’s your story?”
“I don’t have a story”
“Then what are you doing here?”
“I don’t know. Does everything have to have a reason, my friend?”
“Well yes actually… That’s what the judge said”
“What judge?”
“The judge one capsule behind us.”
“What did he say?”
“He said that everything has a reason”
“And you believed him?”
“Yes”
“Because he was one capsule behind you?”
“No, because he was right”
“Right about what?”
“About that everything has a reason”
“Does everything have a reason?”
“Yes”
“Do you think that or does the judge think that?”
“I think that and so does the judge”
“What if I told you the judge doesn’t exist?”
“I wouldn’t believe you”
“Why not? Do you have proof that he did?”
“Actually, yes, I do. He gave me one of his medallions from when he was in Law”
“Do you have it?”
“As a matter of fact…” I turned my pockets inside out and they were empty.
“Nothing. I told you he doesn’t exist!”
“How! I just had the thing! You stole it from me!”
“I have no need for it, my friend, so why would I steel it?”
“You did! You’re some sort of a… a professional thief!”
The old man laughed whole-heartedly. Tears filled up his eyes.
“You make me laugh, my friend”
“It’s not funny! Where did you put them? Holden Caulfield gave me his hat! And the girl gave me her shoe lasses! I swear I had them two seconds ago… Where did you put them?!”
“They never existed, I’m sorry to say”
“What’s the meaning of this?”
“Does there have to be a meaning?”
“I need to get down from here!”
“Are you late for something?”
“I shouldn’t waste my time with a lunatic like you”
“That’s quite true, my friend… Did the judge teach you that?”
“No, it’s common sense”
“What is?”
“Don’t you listen, old man? Didn’t you hear what I already told you? You’re a lunatic”
“Did the judge teach you that?”
“Yes, and I have reason to believe in his judgment!”
“Because he was one capsule behind you?”
“No… Because he was a judge and therefore had good judgment… He was re-known as well… Does that make sense? I need to get off”
“Too bad he doesn’t exist”
“And you? What about you? Am I supposed to believe you don’t exist either?”
“That’s up to you”
“And what about my mom, does she not exist either?”
“Well, what did she give you?”
“Nothing! You can’t take away nothing from me!”
“If I can’t take away ‘nothing’, than obviously, I can take away ‘everything’”
“What do you want from me?”
“Nothing. You’re the one who came to me”
“You said there isn’t a reason for everything…”
“If I can take away ‘everything’, than obviously there has to be a reason for me to do so”
“You’re your own contradiction, old man! A couple minutes back, you said that nothing has a reason and now you’re claiming it does!”
“Well, didn’t the judge say that? Isn’t the judge always right?”
“You told me! The judge isn’t real, like the girl doesn’t exist, and Holden Caulfield and even my mother! Nobody’s real! I’m not real! You’re not real! This Ferris Wheel isn’t real and-“
“My friend! Of course this Ferris wheel is real! I’m the one controlling it!”
“Tell me now… How could you be controlling it, if you’re up here?”
“I got tired so I decided to hop on for a couple rounds, it spun and stopped”
“Who stopped it?”
“My friend… You just told me nothing existed. So what is the importance of knowing who stopped it?”
“When will it start to move again?”
“It’s only up to you, my friend, solely up to you”
I starred into his little flickering eyes; he looked back, with a peaceful yet melancholic smile. I said:
“You’re a lunatic”
“Yes”
“I’m leaving”
We came down and the Ferris wheel came to a halt, like it always did. I got out of my empty capsule. I ran, ran away, never looking back at the Ferris wheel. I swear to you that those people were real but I never looked back to check. I pushed through the crowds of joy, the fast terrifying vehicles, the jokes that were unknown to me now, and the people who were mysteries to me… It was all there and I didn’t recognize it. I tripped; I had forgotten my cane in the capsule. Time was an illogical thing. As I ran, as much as I could, I noticed that all the time in the world hadn’t changed one thing. I saw the mothers holding their children’s hands… It wasn’t logical, it wasn’t illogical, it was life.