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, soldiers,

It’s just a rat…

the dark openings, more scratching. And a nose

an abyss, the abyss will

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

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

*****

do you know what Stockholm syndrome

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

condition where, in a kidnap

“You saying you're getting attached

She pretending mockery, but I have her attention. “… But there's a reverse condition. It's called Lima syndrome, where the captor comes to empathise

“So?”

your only friend,

my friend?” The napkin produces a brigadeiro. A flake of chocolate cracks off the small round cake, dropping

do you

her chewing, mouth hanging a little open.

you wanted was to watch me rot,

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

leave me a bag of potatoes and come once a week. Or even, once a month. But, so far as I

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

swings her head, giggling. “So,

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 the rest

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

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

“Solana…” she hisses.

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

her heel, she stalks

snatch up the discarded

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

taken from the corner.

eaten anything like

For how long?

sense of time is out

had

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

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

I barf it up, where it

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