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…

down gunmen,

It’s just a rat…

dark openings, more scratching. And a nose

you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

I come equipped with fists and feet. Between us,

*****

do you know

flickers over her eyes. She takes something from her lunchbox, unwrapping one

in a kidnap or hostage situation, the prisoner forms

“You saying you're getting attached to

but I have her attention. “… But there's

“So?”

your only friend,

skirts her lips. “Friend? You think you’re my friend?” The napkin produces a brigadeiro. A flake of chocolate cracks off the

do you keep coming

mouth

rot, you have your camera

have to feed you. I assume you do want me to feed

come once a week. Or even, once a

regarding me. I continue. “Am I your only friend, Sola? Is that it? You've murdered

giggling. “So, you're my

when she was a kid? That middle-aged hooker? You've not changed, Larry. I can see right through you. The same heartless bastard that shipped me out to dig up potatoes for the rest of my life. Along

crosses her arms, sits back in her seat, arches her brows. “I am making you

mild. “Did I say otherwise? I'm not claiming to have changed. Who ever really changes?” I raise my gaze again, look into her face.

“Solana…” she hisses.

concrete, some of it dropping just this side of that painted line, now less

heel, she

pain in my 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 before, with a click, the light winks out

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

taken from the corner. And

not eaten anything like

For how long?

I’ve no idea. Weeks? Months? My sense of time is out

had a

empanada, then another, I ram

and suddenly I’m no longer eating, but coughing and choking and

scavenged meal, I barf it up,

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