"Easy. That's the mummy!"
The barker laughs, "We have a winner. Now do you want your 10 years or you want to spin for more?"
He gestures to a multicolor wheel with numbers on it.
"What the hell? I'll spin," you say. After all, it's just a game and the ticket was free. Like you could really add ten years to your life by answering a question right or take ten years off for that matter. You step up to the wheel.
"Grab hold of the sprocket, now give it a real hard turn."
You do.
The wheel spins and spins. Clickety clack, clickety clack, and it begins to slow down. Most of the numbers are low, and there's a very narrow gold space labeled 1000.
1, 5, 12, 2, 1, 3, 1, 1, -5, 500....
It stops on the narrow silver space labeled five hundred.
"My aren't you the lucky fellow," says the barker sarcastically, "Ten years by five hundred- the lucky man wins 5000 years!"
"I'm going to live to be 5000?" you ask.
The man laughs, "Well, in a way. You see you're going to age 5000 years!"
He raises his hand and laughs. A hot desert wind blows a small sandstorm swirls around you.
"Like the sands of an hour glass, so are the days of our lives," laughs the barker, as you struggle in the sand. You don't see the old ragged bandages snaking their way in the wind toward you. But you feel them as they bind your wrists and ankles, and head, neck and arms.
"Noooooooo!"
You feel so weak, so ancient, you just want to die, but you cannot or maybe you already did. You are a creaking, smelly, dusty old mummy.
A bald midget comes up, "Really, Parker?" he says to the barker, "Another mummy."
"Every carnival has to have a mummy in the Fright House!"
"Yeah, but cannot you make'em less frail. The last two fell to dust inside of a week."
They're talking about you like you're an object. You are angry. You reach out furiously tearing your binding rotting bandages. You scream, "Aarr!"
"Sounds more like a pirate," muttered the midget raising an Ahnk medallion.
You feel compelled to lower your arms.
"Ahnk, gets them every time. Take it to the Fright House, Mr. Little."
"The name is Lintel!" growls the little man grabbing a loose bandage, he leads you as if by a leash off toward the tents.
The barker looks at his watch, "Where's everybody? I leave out a free roll of tickets to attract the buggers in, and nobody takes them except that guy?"