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…

dark openings, more scratching. And a

you gaze long enough into an

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

the abyss comes equipped with teeth and whiskers. I come equipped with fists and

*****

you know what Stockholm syndrome

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

condition where, in a kidnap or hostage situation, the

saying you're

no. Don't misread me...” Her head tilts. She pretending mockery, but I have her attention. “… But there's a reverse

“So?”

your

think you’re my friend?” The napkin produces a brigadeiro. A flake of chocolate cracks off the small round

you

chewing, mouth

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

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

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

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

“So, you're my friend

she was a kid? That middle-aged hooker? You've not changed,

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

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

“Solana…” she hisses.

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 white. Even under the heavy make-up, her colour has changed. White-faced, white-lipped,

her heel, she

snatch up the discarded meal from the filthy concrete, scrabbling to grab broken fragments of meat in

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

is almost untouched, only a single bite taken from the corner. And I have half of a

eaten anything like this

For how long?

My sense of time is out of the

I had

then another, I ram the food

Half-chewed pulp goes down the wrong way and

my scavenged meal, I barf it up, where

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