The Newcomer

Thomas Pokok

We all know what happened to me.

Because the story Im about to share with you is not, by any means, extraordinary at first
glance.
You probably already have experienced that feeling. That feeling of excitement mingled with the
most instinctive fear, which generally comes along with my current situation.
The situation is this: I settled in a new city.
This city was, for the most part, unknown to me. One gets the impression that they know it. I
wouldnt assert that this is a true impression. I couldnt say its false, either. Everything suddenly
falls apart; reality, fiction, the persistance of events, the accuracy of memories. As I am writing to
you, I am watching the dark light of the night from my desk, upon which are scattered, here and
there, guilty pieces of evidence. No indication. No opinion. Only the void of an experience which
engulfs me. Only the night making its way through gentle steps, among the dry backwash of a
distant noise, the one this city makes, the one this life makes.
So I then thought you could help me figuring things out, in order to better define what, in my
present experience, belongs to fantasy, to the notion of belief, or on the contrary, if this actually is
the most perfect truth and the absolute exactitude which would greatly reassure me.
Therefore, you will all at once admit it: there is a fight here, the ever reinvented fight between the
two faces of a wild problem this is the choice between genuineness and mystification.
As the juror of a trial in which you do not have a say, there you will be, silently witnessing the
long litany of the hopes and of the mistakes of a man who was merely looking for the pathway
leading to bliss.
***

I remember everything as if it is happening now.

The ground slowly disappears. As an unreality which becomes a dream, the promise of a new life
rejoins my body.
This life, I desired it, I wanted it. But now that it's about to be lived, what to think? What to hope
of this new world? Is it waiting for or is it ignoring me?
No indication to obtain accurate answers. But there appears a term of which the falsely upright
content would not leave me: veracity. Veracity of the experiences, of the encounters; of the hopes,
of the oaths.
So, I would doubt of the existence of truth itself.
As the new land which will host me for a while unfolds, I know there is no turning back. And that
what I am about to live is therefore not a trip, but a true transformation, which is granted to be
experienced only once in the journey that is life.
The modification which prevails, I perceive it first and foremost visually. Here, the light changes.
It is not a frank luminosity, but rather a sweet and essential glow, of an impalpable temper, of an
uncertain nature. Dual. As the particles themselves were doubting. This alteration affects the
colors, the shapes, the sounds as well strangely enough.
Since everything seems unsound and questioned in this country, it is to veracity that I have to
hang to.
At the immigration service, for a short while, the government employee seems lost. He examines
my passport, and types and retypes my name mechanically on an out-of-date keyboard.
Then, there comes the green light.
As I dive into the whisper of the city, I am struck by the new landscape. Everything suddenly
happens: the clamors, the bursts, the blows, the illusions.
In a single movement, the individuals attend to their business. The airport scatters with their
presence. Their choreographs are laid out without a word. Then, everything shakes. The taxi takes
flight, the cars which encircle our way seem to be nothing but evanescent metaphors, as if they
were mere ideas, events that overlap, memories that crash into each other. As the road unfolds,
the skyline surfaces, majestic, masterful.
I arrive safe and sound.
***

The meeting point was set in a small street of an outer borough. The night is here, now. At the
mentioned address, a small box decorated with a code is on the door handle of the building. In
this box are the keys of an apartment rented by the week. As planned, I press the code. At the first
attempt, I manage to access the keys of my new home.
An apartment without any standing. There is a fresco imitating the style of Keith Haring. That
will do.
I don't want to spend too much time here. I want to explore. To feel the pulse of the city. To see,
to gauge. To admire, to experience. To experience things not said and things not done. A gesture
can put anything into question. It takes one hope to make everything sway.
As I walk through the streets, I capture here and there, in the looks, solitude. In this undefined
territory, people seem to somehow overcome dizziness, nearly madness, or at the least, to be in
pursuit of a certain fantasy. I see that in the way people dress and move. Sometimes, they look at
me; I do not know what to think. Am I unnoticed here, or do they figure that I am a stranger? No
way to know.
In reality, I have an appointment.
***
Here you are. We have been waiting a long time for this moment to happen.
This is how Rodrigo greets me, with solemn and kind words, infatuated with grace and mystery.
We met, when was it, four years ago, in a city on the West Coast. An incidental drink caused us to
keep in touch since then. He has changed. He is now completely bold, but the sweet fantasy he
tried to imprint upon his life has not left.
So I tell him how everything happened.
I recount the events methodically, clinically, with the coldness of a medical examiner.
As a preamble, I tell him:
Chance did not choose me. I made the choice of chance.
It was true.
Two years ago, I registered a lottery program of visa deliverance. In theory, it is only random, and
the odds seemed difficult to foil.
But as I was about to check the outcome, something pervaded within me. Even more than a single
certitude, or even just an intuition: faith. The seconds were ticking before the choice was to be
displayed, but however, I knew. I knew beforehand that I would be chosen. And as the sense of
the text became unequivocal, it was no longer a surprise, but a simple confirmation.

Everything grew in power. Gradually, the possibility to change my life reached the point of no
return. To leave everything. To not come back. To take a bet. To seize the risk. To build my own
game. To abide by the rules of courage. To make the leap, to change the scales. To bypass the limit
which separates me from the other world: the one I've chosen.
The evening passes, sometimes we get excited, a mix of ideas and deep silences. As my place is
only rented for a week, Rodrigo suddenly says:
For two months, I will be away. You could stay in my apartment if you want. It's close by.
Agreed.
The evening becomes a distant trace. It is time for me to wander into sleep.
***
The days pile up, to form a flawed construction which I cannot yet figure out neither what it will
look like, nor the function it has been assigned. From time to time, when I walk in the streets, I
look at the downtown area which elevates above the small buildings of my neighborhood, there,
far away, as the pinnacle of a universe which one couldn't even think really exists. A large bridge
acts as the junction to the heart of the megalopolis, where everything is at stake: the emotions,
the decisions impacting the course of history, the power games, the intrigues.
Time flies differently. The night falls early. The people seem to be disconnected. Lives do not have
the same meaning as before: only the reign of money matters, and of this reign ensues the vague
impression that nothing matters. In this Empire, I am nothing but a subject among others.
Gradually, I also start to feel the effect of this phenomenon which makes me feel I am no longer
mine, that the material which constitutes my body has less control on my being, and that my
spirit only cares about roaming away from everything, far from the real world.
What governs me from now on is just a diffuse and pernicious void. What drives me is not the
thirst to live and exist, but the submission to an order of things which I do not yet fully measure
the absence of morals and the victory of inconsequential actions.
Sometimes, I meet new people. Are they people or shadows? I do not have the necessary
information to understand their goals anymore. Surely, we speak the same language - body
langage, occasionally. Surely, we create things in common, bonds; but despite all of this, nothing
stays. Nothing makes sense, and there we evolve, in which it more and more looks very much like
a discounted life, without governing principles, without any essence or conscience. No more
responsibility; nothing but puny and small values, reduced to the bare minimum, which might
even be worse that the complete absence of these values. Because there's nothing left but a

vermeer of civilisation, and that is more misleading than a city which, at least, one would know
what to expect, because it would not even have the false detour of the hopes of loyalty and
respect. There probably was a soul, in this city, a few decades ago; but if the appearance more or
less remained the same, the ones who inhabited it modified its spirit and its presence, as a hacker
which would manage to break the source code without telling anyone. Since then, the city errs,
searching for its past, as if, at the apex of its power, it has one last time the opportunity to turn
back towards the dated nostalgia which presided over its destiny, before everything went away,
before everything disappeared once and for all, in the distant echoes of a fallen glory, because of
lost fights, and as the impersonal branded itself as the only master, as the alpha and omega
without going back either possible or desirable.
In the end, here, I am not at home, I am not in a foreign country: I am elsewhere.
***
It is when I meet Josh online that the feeling of a strange anxiety really takes over.
It is an evening like any other, one of which I still try to adapt to, when I still persist to keep the
hope of making this phase of my life a happy memory.
Someone speaks to me online, on one of those smartphone dating apps which looks more like a
whorehouse than a boudoir. But there is something in his tone and his approach that sounds
different; words are fully written, sentences do have punctuation marks, and signs of politeness
and respect are unusually present.
Then comes sort of an assertion, surprising, nearly bold:
I already saw you in the neighborhood, I think.
When ?
Two months ago, I would say. In the bar I work at, the Metropolitan.
It's impossible, since I wasn't living here two months ago.
But I am absolutely sure of it. You are a writer, right?
Yes.
Yet, you did not tell me you were a writer during our current conversation.
That's correct. Maybe you guessed it.
I don't think so. I've seen you before, we talked.
But I'm afraid it's not possible.
I'm afraid it is.

At first, I don't really pay attention to this part of the discussion shrouded in a mysterious gravity.
But as the evening goes by, with the conversation matters scrolling on my screen, something
makes me hesitate. I suddenly doubt the pertinence of my logic. As an alibi which evaporates
during an interrogation, I feel like I'm discovered to be lying. The structure of events seems so
logical to me, no, I've never been in this town, and therefore, no, I've never lived here.
Nevertheless, the following would prove Josh's reasoning to be accurate.
***
We meet in his apartment the next day. It's late. He is off work, he has his whole evening free. I
ring, he appears at the end of the hallway. The handshake is sincere, nearly warm; but there is as
well a sort of restraint, as if Josh wants to maintain a reasonable distance to gauge me, maybe
even judge me.
In this dual sort of move, upholding a visible uncertainty, I realize that I am also subject to an
ambiguous feeling, mixing a momentum of affection to a rough fear.
After he closes the door, Josh stares at me and says:
That's you that I saw two months ago.
That's beyond understanding, since I was not there. What would have I said?
You told me your name, you told me that you are a writer, that you were here to write a book.
Since I also write, I was impressed.
What else did I say ?
Nothing else but the book's title, The Newcomer. Then you pulled away from the bar and entered
the crowd. It was a Saturday, it was busy. The last time I saw you, you spoke to an acquaintance of
mine. Andrew, a flight attendant. He moved somewhere else since then, I think. Well, I haven't
heard from him lately. We barely spoke, we knew each other just like that.
These last two words, Josh pronounces them slower and louder, which made the general tone of
the conversation gain emphasis, as if to mirror the notable strangeness of the entirety of our
exchanges. And finally, without warning, Josh takes the cigarette I was smoking, finishes it, and
extinguishes it.
You know, here, people don't smoke. Too expensive. You should stop. Right now.
I don't protest, accepting without resistance this revolution falling like a blade.
We are now slouching on the couch, and as we get closer, I think about this title. The Newcomer.
It doesn't ring a bell, but at the same time, it is a title which is so appropriate, simple and

pertinent and to the point that I cannot help myself thinking that what Josh is telling me is at
least partly true, even if it sounds insane. But as soon as you start crossing the line which divides
the rational and the supernatural, the unexplained is not fiction anymore, but reality, and even
more, it is routine, these things which become completely banal even though they were, in other
spheres, completely irrelevant, because they were considered to be false, devoid, and impossible.
A foolproof reasoning is not a logical succession of arguments aligned one after another; it is what
is needed of exactitude mixed with the most profound doubt.
***
When I wake up, I have the strange sensation of having slept very little, whereas it is past noon.
Josh is up, looking at me, holding a cup of coffee, which he gives me, and says:
It is about time to face reality, you know.
This sentence brings me back to my condition of everlasting dreamer, to my idealist nature,
sometimes praised, sometimes discredited. As if my propensity to be willing to escape into perfect
ideas, in theories, in archetypes which causes in others a deep division, and is the subject of a
never-ending controversy between the defenders of a bleak reality and of an innocent fantasy. The
two opinions, irreconcilable because so diverging are, however, very frequently lodged inside one
human being, whether it was during different phases of their life, or, which is even more
common, simultaneously. As if humanity was subject to an dormant epidemic of schizophrenia,
within which alternatively, in a latent war, without arms nor warriors, concepts and images were
to face without a word being spoken, in a biased scheme in which one could not know any longer
who, between the experience of living and the fertile imagination was on the side of good and evil;
and nevertheless, that long-lasting fight was, in spite of being a paradox, our essence, what
characterized us, the members of the human species.
It's snowing outside. The little icy streams make the hope of a peaceful day to shrink, up to the
point it is annihilated. Because when it is snowing, we cannot fully be at peace.
***
When I get home, I find a white envelope in front of my door.
Inside, there is a paper where it is written:
Meet me at Metropolitan tonight at 8 Andrew.
***
That evening, I feel apprehension, while getting to the Metropolitan. Not a real panic, just what is
needed to bring tension to the atmosphere and to give the message to the people that I'm about to

undergo a shock, which I do not yet know the scale. The snow is still falling, a little less than
before, but apparently people say that a storm will rage, a little later in the night.
I don't know how to recognize Andrew, I only know that he is a flight attendant, and therefore, he
must be in good physical condition, let alone, maybe, being good natured.
I go into the bar after showing my I.D. It is already busy; speakers set up on both sides of the
main room make pulsing electro-pop music. A large counter spreads on the left sidewall. People,
mainly men, are waiting to order, leaning against the bar, slouching in line like a row of dominos
which would collapse one after the over, making a show without a whisper of interest, if not
pathetic.
I wait for about three minutes, but it seems longer; then, someone moves towards me.
People do not meet anymore, nowadays.
Here are the words of Andrew, or, at least, the person I identify as Andrew. He is indeed built like
a flight attendant, he does have the measured attitude of one, as well. But of course, I do not have
the slightest memory of having met this man beforehand.
Are you Andrew ?
Yes, it is me.
I don't understand. Have we met before ?
I think so. You seem to have yours doubts. Not very gratifying for me... Just kidding.
When would we have met ?
Not so long ago, in a time which no longer exists, neither for you, nor for me. Two months ago,
I would say.
We settle in the patio, a bit away from the surrounding loudness. The snow starts to fall more and
more; a wooden partition protects us. Then, he tells me everything. How I came to his place one
night, how I arrived breathless and sweaty. I quickly took most of my clothes off, except for my
jeans and I started recounting the story of my life, someone who wanted to make of writing his
life goal, the only goal. Someone who wanted to make others feel what he understood what it
meant to live, in all its dimensions, intellectually, emotionally, physically and spiritually. Someone
who wanted to reconcile autobiography and fiction, real life and imagination, in order to reach the
ideal symbiosis. Someone who thought that writing was the perfect means to transport others to a
world they could not even think of, because they were too far muffled by everyday life, by
pettinesses. The baselessness of human beings can only achieve a supreme elevation that which
only writing or music could provide. Then, I would have said to Andrew than my only purpose in

life was to write, not only to be a writer, but also to be read. In a time which devotes itself to the
glorification of ego, I wanted to turn the situation around to bring the knowledge that faith in
God might have given us before, but which was no longer fulfilled by anything. And that void,
that gaping hole could be replaced by two things: barbarity or perfection. This moral antagonism,
this was the origin of my fight, and the only solution was to lead this fight through words and
language.
During this strange moment, when I witness a silent reported speech of sentences I do not
remember having pronounced neither in this context, nor in this order, but of which the general
layout could only originate from me, I am drinking a vodka cranberry, as if all of this is just a
normal conversation, whereas in reality, everything that is said is supernatural, and is a path I am
not ready to take, but on which I am already within, as I realize when Andrew takes a notebook
our of his bag, which he gives me saying:
You forgot this at my place, when we first met.
I take the notebook and open it. On the first page is written :
We all know what happened to me
Then, before I could analyze this sentence, Andrew moves on.
I'm working tomorrow, I have to wake up very early.
Where are you going?
Paris.
Around us, the party is in full gear. Seductions accumulate like lost promises. Here and there,
men are kissing. I am not in the mood to stay here. I suggest to Andrew that we leave, but then I
suddenly remember that Josh is supposed to work at this bar. I get close to the counter.
Is Josh working here tonight?
Josh?
Yes, Josh ?
Oh, Josh; he no longer works here.
How so, since when?
He left two months ago. He said he wanted to write and that he felt like moving out of town.
This piece of information does not generate many questions for me; I'm to the point where any
surprising fact is consumed like something obvious.
We leave Metropolitan; snow is settling everywhere. We undertake to say goodbye, when I ask
Andrew:

 By the way, how did you find out where I live?

Rodrigo told me, he's a friend.
All these people are connected, as a web extending above us, haunting and silent, manipulating
interactions, playing with us, amused by admiring the effects of its confabulations.
As Andrew goes down into the subway station, launching a last look at me, I don't feel like going
home.
***
Kellogg's Diner is one of those places with a simple charm and a convenient schedule. Open 24
hours a day, I sometimes linger there, since I've been in town. I never fail to chat with the
Canadian waitress who has been working there for more than 20 years, switching between
English and French, eating a cheeseburger as they know only how to make here.
They predict already the snow storm as the one of the century, and it's been given the name
Snowzilla. The place tonight is much calmer than normal. The waitress that I know is not here; I'm
nearly by myself, the restaurant looks ghostly.
If rationale required that I rush to be cloistered at home, I dont care. There I wait for time to go
by, as I see around me, here and there, some phantoms, some fragments of presences.
Thanks to one of the dating apps, a conversation starts on the screen of my phone.
Hey.
Hey. Not too cold?
No, I'm in a restaurant. And you?
I am at home. What do you do in a restaurant during this storm?
Good question. And you, what are you doing at home?
I have no clue. I'm waiting for company to entertain me. Maybe yours, who knows?
Sure, why not.
There is something that makes me think that this is a good person. Someone tender. Someone
who listens. And God knows I have things to tell.
So here I am, walking in the snow which blows wherever it may, as the blizzard increases, as the
hearts are about to learn the meaning of their fate. A few minutes later, I am in front of the
building of my host.
When I shake hands with him, I begin to feel the strange impression that I have already lived this
moment. That everything is in reality written in advance, like a script which one cannot dispose

of, as a divine order in which no deviation is allowed. His voice suddenly resonates, as if it was
the echo of time immemorial.
By the way, you did not tell me your name.
Thomas, and yours?
I'm Thomas too. Coincidence.
I see hundreds of vinyls fill the shelves covering the walls of the small room. There isnt much
more than a couch and a bed. A form of simplicity and essence. A welcome, in other words.
So I start to relate.
I recount my story. The selection at the visa lottery. My arrival. My setup in Rodrigo's apartment.
The encounter with Josh. The meeting with Andrew. Until now, in the darkness of a stormy
evening, where everything is about to change forever, until the end of time.
You know, I don't think you've been chosen randomly. You were selected on purpose.
Why me and not somebody else?
You may be the subject of an experiment.
A... scientific experiment?
No, not a scientific one. A literary one.
He pauses thoughtfully and then starts again.
What is this notebook you are holding?
Andrew gave it to me, he told me I left it at his place.
May I see it?
Sure.
He opens the notebook to the first page. He laughs.
Why are you laughing?
I didnt mean to laugh. I'll show you why.
He gets up, seizes a small book which was on his bedside table, and gives it to me.
Its title: The Newcomer.
So I read.
This short story is about a man who settles in the United States, in New York, after having won
the Green Card lottery. When he arrives in the city, he realizes, after a few strange encounters,
that his constant concern is caused by the fact that this city is not New York. It has the appearance
of New York, but it is merely a mirage, in which everyone is in actuality avatars, fictional

presences completely fabricated, and that he is only a character, which, consequently, does not
exist.
After having read the small book, I ask Thomas:
Who gave you this?
Rodrigo. He told me that someone had left it at his place.
What do you mean, someone?
Someone he lent his apartment to for two months.
Who?
Don't you understand?
Understand what?
That you wrote this text, and that we all know each other; Rodrigo, Josh, Andrew and I, since
we are just reflections of your own life, the one you have chosen to create for yourself?
As everything finally becomes obvious, Thomas gets up, opens the door of his apartment, and
says:
Come see all this snow outside.
I cross the threshold. Suddenly I am not cold. Everything is black and white at the same time.
Everything is beautiful. Everything is happy and sad at the same time. White prevails over black,
the snow falls more and more, and I merge into an immense white landscape. White, nothing but
white. Void, nothing but void. Hope, nothing but hope. Truth, nothing but truth, in this world
where all of a sudden, I feel my body ascending in the sky, as if the divine call finally occurs, and I
give myself up, I live for the first time.
As the planet moves further away, I only see thin black lines.
Before disappearing forever, I manage to read the words they compose.
They compose the words:
The end.
***

It is very early, today, when I come out of sleep.

I wake up. I am ready. Finally ready to leave my Parisian apartment, to say good-bye to France.
Yes, everything is ready. My luggage, my papers; I won the visa at the lottery. New York is waiting
for me. I have no dreams, nor hopes; because nothing would be more misleading than putting
fiction where nothing but reality will matter; plain, pure and true reality, the one I always
dreamed of facing, on equal terms, by the horns.
The first thing I am doing is to read again. Read again what I wrote yesterday, at my desk, during
my last night in Paris, in this place I loved, where I experienced so many things, either beautiful
or sad.
I wrote nothing but a title and a few words.
The Newcomer.
We all know what is going to happen to me.
I smile. I smile because I know that what I just wrote is my duty to make it happen; and this
thought gives me the crazy idea that I do not exist, and that I never will.
Downstairs, the taxi which will take me to the airport is waiting for me. It is about time to write
the new chapter of my life; it is about time to write my life.
***
The ground slowly disappears. As an unreality which becomes a dream, the promise of a new life
rejoins my body.
This life, I desired it, I wanted it. But now that it's about to be lived, what to think?
I just think that you and I know.
Yes, we know it.
We know.
We know what is going to happen to me.

THE END