The teacher appears…
.
When the student is ready…
The Traveler stood alone beneath a forest of giant screens.
The city glowed around him.
A hundred stories above, advertisements drifted across the night sky. Beautiful faces smiled down from buildings the size of mountains. News crawled endlessly across illuminated walls. Music echoed from restaurants. Thousands of people hurried past carrying phones that cast pale blue light upon their faces.
Everything seemed alive.
Everything seemed prosperous.
Everything seemed normal.
Yet something felt wrong.
The feeling had followed him for years.
Not a thought.
Not an idea.
A sensation.
Like a splinter in his mind.
He watched the crowd moving along the sidewalk.
Some stared at screens.
Some wore headphones.
Some laughed.
Some argued.
Most appeared busy.
But busy doing what?
The question came to him more often lately.
A block away, a homeless man slept beneath a twenty-foot advertisement for luxury watches.
Across the street, a giant screen urged viewers to “Be Yourself.”
The Traveler looked around.
Nobody seemed to find these contradictions remarkable.
The screen changed.
A politician appeared.
Then a celebrity.
Then a pharmaceutical advertisement.
Then a university.
Then another politician.
The messages differed.
The feeling did not.
Something was wrong.
A voice spoke beside him.
“Good.”
The Traveler turned.
An old man stood there.
Simple clothes.
Gray hair.
Alert eyes.
He seemed strangely unaffected by the chaos around him.
“Good?” asked the Traveler.
The old man nodded.
“Most people never notice.”
“Notice what?”
“The splinter.”
The Traveler stared.
The old man smiled.
“You thought it was only you?”
For a moment neither spoke.
The city continued roaring around them.
“What is wrong with this place?” asked the Traveler.
The old man laughed softly.
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“On whether you are asking about the city.”
The Traveler frowned.
“What else would I be asking about?”
The old man pointed toward the crowd.
Thousands of people flowed through the streets.
“Tell me,” he said.
“Do you think they are free?”
The Traveler followed his gaze.
“I suppose so.”
“Do they?”
The Traveler hesitated.
The old man continued.
“Do they know why they believe what they believe?”
“No.”
“Do they know who taught them what is important?”
“No.”
“Do they know why they pursue what they pursue?”
“No.”
The old man nodded.
“Interesting.”
“What is?”
“They are fish.”
“What?”
“Fish.”
The Traveler looked at him as though he were insane.
The old man pointed toward the glowing city.
“Tell a fish he lives in water.”
The Traveler said nothing.
“He will ask, ‘What is water?'”
The old man looked up at the giant screens.
“And tell a man he lives inside a worldview.”
The Traveler felt something shift.
The old man continued.
“He will ask exactly the same question.”
For several moments neither spoke.
The advertisements changed.
The crowd flowed onward.
Sirens echoed somewhere in the distance.
The Traveler looked around the city as if seeing it for the first time.
“What are you saying?”
The old man smiled.
“I am saying that when the student is ready…”
He turned and began walking away.
The Traveler felt a sudden urgency.
“Ready for what?”
The old man glanced back.
“…the teacher appears.”
Then he disappeared into the crowd.
The Traveler hesitated only a moment before following.