Klempner

What's the obsession with potatoes?

I called her Potato Face when she was a kid.

What does she look like now?

Jenny was no looker at that age…

… But she matured. Bloomed.

Juliana... Never the same twice.

I scratch at my beard. I’ve never liked facial hair in hot climates, but I don’t have a choice right now. Even so, the flourishing colony of lice that has stowed aboard adds an extra edge of irritation.

Lice…

Where the fuck did they come from?

Can rat lice live on humans?

Having a fucking good go at it…

I catch one, squeezing the revolting thing between my fingernails. It bursts with a Pop!

Only another 999 to go…

*****

The boredom’s the worst. Endless hours. Endless days and nights. I’ve no idea how long.

The only breaks in the monotony are Juliana’s visits: just long enough to sit, eat something at me, toss a potato at me.

No, not Juliana: Solana.

Why's she so obsessed with the name?

How many names have I used over the years? Worn like a suit of clothes to be discarded when the weather changes and something different is needed.

I’ve never been defined by my name.

But she sees it differently…

Something skritches and I jerk a look sidelong

It’s a rat…

Just a rat…

faced down

It’s just a rat…

more scratching. And

long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back at

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

case, the abyss comes equipped with teeth and whiskers. I come equipped with fists and feet. Between

*****

you know what

her lunchbox, unwrapping one of her usual dainties from

the label for a psychological condition where, in a kidnap or

saying you're

“… But there's a reverse condition. It's called Lima syndrome, where the

“So?”

your

flake of chocolate cracks off the small round cake, dropping back into the napkin and she dabs it up

why do you

her chewing, mouth

to watch me rot, you have your camera there.”

do want me to

reason, you could leave me a bag of potatoes and come once a week. Or even, once a month. But, so far as I can reckon, you're here

not speaking, simply regarding me. I continue. “Am I your only friend,

giggling. “So, you're my friend are

You believe you're worth saving? That there's anyone out there who thinks you're worth it? The daughter you had slated as a sex-slave when she was a kid? That middle-aged hooker? You've not changed, Larry. I can see right through you. The same heartless

sits back in her seat, arches her

I say otherwise? I'm not claiming to have changed. Who ever really changes?” I raise my gaze again, look

“Solana…” she hisses.

scatter over the rancid concrete, some of it dropping just this side of that painted line, now less

her heel, she stalks

ankle as the chain snaps taut, I snatch up the discarded meal from the filthy concrete, scrabbling to grab broken fragments of meat in one hand, a cake with the other

the green blink of the camera. It hardly matters. My attention is on the wealth in

untouched, only a single bite taken from the corner.

anything like

For how long?

idea. Weeks? Months? My sense of

had a

mouthful of empanada, then another, I ram the

goes down the wrong way and suddenly I’m no longer

scavenged meal, I barf it up, where it plops in a saliva-coated mess onto the

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