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 gunmen,

It’s just a rat…

the dark openings, more scratching.

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

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

I come equipped with fists and

*****

know what

takes something from her lunchbox, unwrapping one of

condition where, in a kidnap or hostage situation,

sniggers. “You saying you're

Don't misread me...” Her head tilts. She pretending mockery, but I have her attention. “… But there's a reverse condition. It's called Lima syndrome, where the captor

“So?”

your only friend,

of chocolate cracks off

why do you keep coming

chewing, mouth hanging a

keep coming? If all you wanted was to watch me rot, you have your camera there.”

assume you do want me to feed you? We can always change

come once a week. Or even, once a month. But, so far

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

“So, you're

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 the rest of my life. Along with all the others you did the same to.

arms, sits back in her seat, arches her brows.

I keep my voice mild. “Did I say otherwise? I'm not claiming to have changed. Who ever

“Solana…” she hisses.

says no more. Instead, she stands, the lunchbox tumbling from her lap. The contents spill and scatter over the rancid concrete, some of it dropping just this side of that painted line, now less than

her heel, she

up the discarded meal from the filthy concrete, scrabbling to grab broken fragments

green blink of the camera. It hardly matters. My

bite taken from the corner.

anything like

For how long?

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

I had a

mouthful of empanada, then another,

Too soon. Half-chewed pulp goes down the wrong way and suddenly I’m no longer

to swallow, gagging on my scavenged meal, I barf it up, where it plops in a saliva-coated mess onto the

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