The narrator of this story moves from his native Argentina to Europe, having picked his destination at random. What awaits him? Is he an economic migrant, an adventurer, a moody young man with no prospects? All he knows is this: “And this is where I am now, I will think and repeat uncountable times since then, the this and the now jumping back and forth. Ungraspable thises and nows.”

He has just arrived here; he has found a job. Is he to spend the rest of his life washing dishes? No, he will keep moving, without knowing where to. “Because it will take some more immigration officers until I shake off the illusion that I belong this side of the ocean.” And now, writing the story, he muses: “I may be trying to figure out what is actually real, and what made-up…I might be rejoicing in the fabrication.” Who needs a better reason to pick up the pen?

Collected in Jolts, Influx Press, 2020