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…

openings, more scratching. And a

long enough into an abyss, the abyss will

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

whiskers. I come equipped with

*****

know what

from her lunchbox, unwrapping one of her usual dainties from a napkin.

where, in a kidnap or hostage situation, the prisoner forms

you're getting

I have her attention. “… But there's a reverse condition. It's called Lima syndrome, where

“So?”

your

chocolate cracks off the small round cake, dropping back into the napkin and she dabs it up with a fingertip then

why do you

in her chewing, mouth hanging a

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

want me to feed you? We can

do. But if that were the only reason, you could leave me a bag of potatoes and come once a week. Or even, once

swallows, not speaking, simply regarding me. I continue. “Am I your only friend, Sola? Is that it? You've murdered everyone else that might

swings her head, giggling. “So, you're my friend

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 bastard that shipped me out to dig up potatoes for

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

have changed. Who ever really

“Solana…” she hisses.

stands, the lunchbox tumbling from her lap. The contents spill and scatter over the rancid concrete, some of it dropping just this side

heel,

ignoring the jab of 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

camera. It hardly matters. My attention is

almost untouched, only a single bite taken from the corner. And

not eaten anything like this for…

For how long?

Months? My sense of time is

had a

another, I ram the

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

barf it up, where it plops

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