The Flicker Men Read Online Free

high cheekbones—eyes so clear and blue and perfect that I didn’t even realize at first.
    â€œIt’s okay,” she said to one researcher’s stammering apology. “I get that a lot.” She never wore dark glasses, never used a white cane. “Detached retinas,” she explained. “I was three. It’s nothing to me.”
    â€œHow do you find your room?” It was Satvik who asked it. Blunt Satvik.
    â€œWho needs eyes when you have ears and memory? The blind are good at counting steps. Besides, you shouldn’t trust your eyes.” She smiled. “Nothing is what it seems.”
    In the afternoons, back in the main building, I tried to work.
    Alone in my office, I stared at the marker board. The great empty expanse of it. I picked up the marker, closed my eyes. Nothing is what it seems.
    I wrote from memory, the formula spooling out of my left hand with practiced ease. A series of letters and numbers, like the archaic runes of some forgotten sorcery—a shape I could see in my head. The work from QSR. I stopped. When I looked at what I’d written, I threw the marker against the wall. The stack of notes on my desk shifted and fell to the floor.
    Jeremy came by later that night.
    He stood in the doorway, cup of coffee in his hand. He saw the papers scattered across the floor, the formula scrawled across the marker board.
    â€œMath is merely metaphor,” his voice drifted from the doorway. “Isn’t that what you always used to say?”
    â€œAh, the self-assuredness of youth. So rich in simple declarations.”
    â€œYou have nothing to declare?”
    â€œI’ve lost the stomach.”
    He patted his own stomach. “What you’ve lost, I’ve gained, eh?”
    That raised a smile from me. He wasn’t a pound overweight; he simply no longer looked like he was starving. “Isn’t that just like us,” I said, “giving ourselves primacy. Maybe we’re the metaphor.”
    He held out his coffee cup in mock salute. “You always were the smart one.”
    â€œThe crazy one, you mean.”
    He shook his head. “No, Stuart was the crazy one. But you were the one to watch. We all knew it. Before you came along, I’d never seen a student get into an argument with a professor.”
    â€œThat was forever ago.”
    â€œBut you won the argument.”
    â€œFunny, but I don’t remember it like that.”
    â€œOh, you won, all right, if you think about it.” He sipped his coffee. “It just took you a few years.”
    Jeremy walked farther into the room, careful not to step on the papers. “Do you still talk to Stuart?”
    â€œNot for a long time.”
    â€œToo bad,” he said. “You partnered on some interesting work.”
    Which was one way to put it. It was also Jeremy’s way of bringing up his reason for dropping in. Work. “I got a visit from one of the review board members today,” he said. “He asked about your progress.”
    â€œAlready?”
    â€œIt’s been a few weeks. The board is just staying on top of things, curious how you’re adjusting.”
    â€œWhat did you say?”
    â€œI said I’d look in on you, so here I am. Looking in.” He gestured toward the formula on the marker board. “It’s good to see you working on something.”
    â€œIt’s not work,” I said.
    â€œThese things take time.”
    Honesty welled up. There was no point in lying. To myself or him. A rising bubble in my chest, and just like that, it burst: “Time is what I’m wasting here,” I said. “Your time. This lab’s time.”
    â€œIt’s fine, Eric,” he said. “It’ll come.”
    â€œI don’t think it will.”
    â€œWe have researchers on staff who don’t have a third of your citings. You belong here. The first few weeks can be the toughest.”
    â€œIt’s not like