On Wednesday, I kind of expected to see The Flickering Man already seated at the same spot that I had left him the day before where I had my lunch. My expectation was partially right. The Flickering Man was still in the park but he was not seated. Rather, he was pacing back and forth between the fountain and the park bench where we had sat. So I made my way towards him and as soon as he saw me, I saw the widest grin that I had seen from a man in this city forming on his face.
“Hello there. I reached a little bit of a eureka moment this morning and I wish to share this fascinating discovery with you. Come, come, please take a seat,” The Flickering Man beckoned me to a seat.
I made my way round to a park bench and took a seat. After I was comfortably seated, I lifted the lids off my lunchbox and took out the ham and cheese sandwich which I had made for myself in the morning and pre-heated in my workplace’s pantry oven. I watched as The Flickering Man continued to pace back and forth. I saw that he still had on his grey Oxford shirt and khaki pants, but he had swapped out his boots for more normal dress shoes. With his shirt tucked out, he almost seemed like a typical city man on a weekend drink with his friends. The Flickering Man stopped pacing about a metre away from me and looked up to face me.
“Languages. Do you speak different languages?” The Flickering Man abruptly asked.
I can speak two languages… Although I am only really proficient in one.
“Do you think that you think differently, or feel different, when you speak in a different language?” The Flickering Man prompted me further.
I’m not sure… But I feel like I can better explain certain things in one language than another.
“What about directions? Can you tell where is North and where is South?” The Flickering Man probed me, in what appears to be a discontinuity from his previous line of questioning.
If you get me a compass, or if I observed the Sun, I suppose I can tell you the cardinal directions.
“But what if you close your eyes or are indoors. Can you still tell?”
No, of course not.
“But some people can.”
They do?
“Yes. People who speak Guugu Yimithirr in Northern Queensland in Australia.”
That is interesting.
“Indeed. They are not the only ones who can, however. People who speak Tzeltal in Southern Mexico, Marshallese from the Polynesian Marshall islands and many more across the globe. They all have the ability to tell you the cardinal directions, even if you were to blindfold them and spin them around more than 100 times!” The Flickering Man informed me.
Like having an internal compass.
“Exactly! Although… not as perfect as an actual compass.”
Why are you interested to find out about this peculiar ability of theirs?
The Flickering Man’s face turned a little serious.
“Your curiosity yesterday set me on a quest of discovering the limitedness of your beings’ perceptual faculties,” The Flickering Man explained. “I wanted to discover what exactly can you perceive and what can you not. I thought it could help me too since if I knew your being’s perceptual limits, I can better ease myself into your universe and try to be a part of it’s cycles. Thus, I had travelled the globe, met all of these amazing people and discovered this extraordinary discovery”.
You went to all of these places in one morning?
“Yes,” The Flickering Man casually replied, as if it is something un-extraordinary at all. “The people with compasses in their heads, they can perceive direction like you never could without the use of external tools. Do you know what does this mean?”
No, you tell me.
“This means that you have an internal device or system already embedded within your psyche - language - that could enable you to expand your own limited perceptual faculties,” The Flickering Man revealed excitedly.
But as you mentioned, isn’t an actual compass a lot more useful in increasing our perceptual abilities?
“Yes. A microscope, an X-Ray machine, infrared glasses or maybe even those ghost detection devices some ghost-hunters used. All these machines could, in many ways, expand one’s perceptual abilities more than a language probably ever could,” The Flickering Man agreed.
There was a pause in our conversation. During the short pause, The Flickering Man walked towards me and plopped himself down onto the seat beside me.
Is there a tool out there that could help us perceive everything?
“You mean to see Constant?”
Yes.
Another pause. The Flickering Man turned to face me and I could see now he was grinning from ear to ear again. He was practically beaming.
“There is. And it is more of a language than it is a tool,” The Flickering Man told me.
Really? What is it?
“Maths! Maths is the language of Constant. Understanding maths and using it to study the world will allow you to perceive Constant.”
I closed my lunch box. I had finished my meal.
I know a little Maths. Why can’t I perceive Constant?
“You have to apply it to the world and see if the Maths’ integrity holds. If it holds, you would have discovered and perceived Constant,” The Flickering Man told me.
How about social constructs, like my relationship with people. Those seems pretty constant to me.
“Unfortunately, emotional attachment is perhaps one of the most un-constant-like thing in this world and belongs to the cycles of cause and effects that began when this world began. If the ones you have a relationship with abandoned you, scarred you - emotionally, physically, or mentally - you may lose your feelings of attachment for them. Some night say emotions are justna play of chemical hormones in our heads. And chemicals, they are a part of the natural cycles of this world, so it is not a Constant.”
What is a Constant then?
“You’ll have to observe the world a little deeper if you truly intend to perceive Constant. Look around you and look past the immeasurable cycles of this world. Constant is everywhere around you. It is in everything.”
I looked around the park. I looked at the trees, the leaves that had fallen onto the ground, the birds, the buildings. I hear the sound of a car horn in the distant and the sound of birds chirping. I see the thin sliver of sunlight that creeps through the oddly-shaped building.
Light. When there is light, like that sun ray over here, and I try to touch it or catch it with my bare hands, my hands will just pass right through it. But I know… I know that the light is always there and will always be there in that space. So is Light a Constant?
“A great observation. In observing and understanding Light, you can perceive a property or facet of Constant. One could describe Light as a symptom of Constant that humans are able to perceive. Did you know that Light travels at exactly 299 792 458 metres per second in a vacuum?”
I think I’ve read about it before.
“It is a peculiarity because it means that no matter where you are observing light from, be it you are travelling at a thousand kilometres per second or just standing still, light will always be observed to be travelling at the same speed. Is that not proof enough that Light is a symptom of a Constant universe out there? A universe or dimension that you are not yet able to perceive?” The Flickering Man asked me.
I stretched out my hands to touch the sliver of light in front of me. And I knew, I had closed my hands around a piece of Constant.
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