My life changed the moment I met The Flickering Man. I called him that because using his name never quite seem right given the extraordinary nature of his existence.
I remember the day I met him for the first time. It was just a typical warm humid weekday afternoon in the city and I was having a satisfying lunch of overstuffed kebab in a park near my workplace.The park has a dull fountain in the middle, about five park benches surrounding the fountain, and a couple of trees lining behind the park benches. Tall towering skyscrapers loomed outside the park’s boundary, shrouding the park in perpetual shade.
I was sitting on one of the benches having my lunch while observing the pigeons shuffling on the paved floor when I felt a figure taking a seat right next to me. That day, there was only one other person in that park - an old man who appeared to be sleeping, sitting across us. Thus, it felt strange to have this person come sit right next to me when all the other park benches were unoccupied. My first thought was that it was a colleague from work that had found my afternoon shrine and decided to talk about some work. If it was, I think I would have studied the city map once more to locate the next park space to enjoy my lunch in peace. But it was not. It was The Flickering Man.
I stole a glance at the person from the corner of my eye. It was a man. He was wearing a dark blue trench coat, a pair of long khaki pants and a pair of heavy boots. A fairly odd attire for the tropical city that I live in where the temperature outside never falls below 25 degrees celsius. The man had both of his hands tightly gripped over his knees and a look of utmost concentration on his face as he stared at the pigeons ahead of us.
Then, he flickered.
I blinked. Perhaps it is an optical illusion, so I thought. With light creeping past the cracks in the metallic buildings around us at weird angles and intensity, perhaps the light had played a trick in my eyes.
But he flickered again.
When something noticeably strange occur, it is natural that we address the occurrence and then we react to it. The universe compels us to do so. Ignoring the strange event is simply detaching oneself from the natural cycle of this world, and in doing so we will most certainly create an even more abnormal chain reaction of events far greater than the original events. For example, when a blazing inferno erupted right in front of you out of nowhere, it is most certainly unnatural for you to continue walking into it. Someone watching you will feel compelled to scream or come rushing at you to pull you away and then they may get burnt, and when they get burnt, their family will be distraught, and when they are distraught, they will want to blame someone or get compensation from the insurance company. The insurance company will have a field day trying to paint the incident as an act of God just so they can escape having to compensate the victim. It will be an irony because technically, if you believe in a God, everything is an act of God. The point is, in your ignorance of the sudden change that had happened, you had induced a chain reaction of otherwise preventable, non-existent actions into being. It is best to just go with the flow.
Thus, I had turned to face The Flickering Man to confront this abnormal situation.
Good day to you. Is it just me, or are you flickering?
“Good day to you too! And yes! If that is what you perceive, then I most certainly am… I am trying not to, however, but it has been a while since I tried to tune myself to the cycles of a particular world and a particular moment and it definitely has been a while longer since I had to attempt to acculturate myself to the perceptual faculties of beings who are aware of the laws of their world such as yourself, but I usually get it right in the end!” The Flickering Man broke off from his staring of the pigeons and turned to explain to me. Or at least he tried to.
“Right then. I have got to get it right this time, shouldn’t I? There is just that specific narrow view of it that people can perceive. I certainly hope I do not appear like some horrendous scary all-terrifying demon,” The Flickering Man continued.
You don’t look like a demon.
“That’s a relief isn’t it? If I was, I’d expect you wouldn’t be sitting calmly beside me like you are now. You see, if I don’t get this right, I could appear like a static tree, or I could just disappear. Well… technically I won’t disappear, because I will still be here here. If that makes any sense to you,” The Flickering Man chuckled. “I can see you starting to look a little confused. Maybe I can try to explain it better some other day, but not today! If you don’t mind, I need to concentrate so that I can stop flickering!”
With that, The Flickering Man turned back to face the pigeons and continued staring intensely at them. The Flickering Man remained silent that day except with the occasional humming and grunting, and, of course, flickering.
My phone alarm beeped, indicating that my afternoon break was over. I wolfed down the remainder of my kebab, stood up, threw away the wrapper and as The Flickering Man was still busy, I decided to just leave him there. I thought my encounter with him would be the last time we met.
As it turns out, it wasn’t.
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