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…

the dark openings, more scratching. And a nose pokes

you gaze long enough into an

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

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

*****

you know what Stockholm syndrome

over her eyes. She takes something from her lunchbox, unwrapping one of her usual dainties from a napkin. “What is

condition where, in a kidnap or hostage situation, the prisoner forms an attachment to

saying you're getting attached to

I have her attention. “… But

“So?”

I your

The napkin produces a brigadeiro. A flake of chocolate cracks off the small round cake, dropping back into the napkin and she

why do you keep coming

her chewing, mouth hanging a

watch me rot, you have your

do want me

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

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

head, giggling. “So, you're my

sex-slave when she was a kid? That middle-aged hooker? You've not changed, Larry. I can see right

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

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

“Solana…” she hisses.

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

heel, she stalks

the fallen food, ignoring the jab of pain in my ankle as the chain snaps taut, I snatch up the discarded meal from the

blind, my eyes adjust to the green blink of the camera. It hardly matters. My attention

meat-and-veg-stuffed delicacy is almost untouched, only a single bite taken from the corner. And I have half of

not eaten anything like this

For how long?

My sense of time is out of

had

a mouthful of empanada, then another, I ram the food into

way and suddenly I’m no longer eating,

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

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