Turnstile Remembers Every Push

What if the turnstile's resistance wasn't friction at all, but memory: every hip that shoved past, every fare card's static charge, lodging somewhere in the gears. The arm swings easier for some, harder for others, and no one has measured why. Suppose it's counting not coins but reluctance, tallying the mornings someone almost turned back at the gate. Eventually the metal would grow heavy with refusals never taken. Riders would blame worn bearings, rust, the transit authority's neglect. But down in the mechanism, something keeps score of every hesitation that still, in the end, walked through.