Flicker Person # 2 (illustrated by Max Rugers)

After the car accident, Brant Tucker carries Charlene through a snow storm to a quaint inn, where they are helped with their injuries. Brant is given something to drink and passes out.

When he wakes up he finds Charlene in the inn, at a table, listening to stories.

Mister Gaheris tells the story of a man named Robert who, loves his city and, while wandering through his city on his lunch break, find a silver road. He walks upon the road and finds only an alley.

That evening he missed his regular train and so he takes takes a later train home. He finds himself alone on the train with a tall, thin, pale man with wild hair dressed all in black. His eyes are like pools of night.

Robert realizes that the train is not stopping at any of the regular stations and so once the train finally stops he quickly exits and he finds himself on an unfamiliar street, in a city he doesn’t recognize.

He wanders throughout this new city hoping to find a shimmering archway, door or street that will return him to the city he knows and loves.

Occassionally he will see other people in the city. They are visible briefly, they shimmer and vanish before Robert can speak to them.

After a few days of wandering through the city he meets an old man on the bridge. The old man explains that all cities have personalities and that perhaps they are living things and if they are living things, perhaps the city is dreaming. When Robert asks about the Flicker People the old man says “Who knows? Perhaps they are waking people, flickering through our world. For one fractional moment they enter the city’s dreams, and see the city the way we see it. Or perhaps they are people the city is dreaming of”

This is one of the Flicker People.

He appears in Sandman # 51, on page 15, in panel 6.