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

It’s just a rat…

openings, more scratching.

long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

teeth and whiskers. I come equipped with fists and feet. Between us, we

*****

you know what

Interest flickers over her eyes. She takes something from her lunchbox, unwrapping

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

“You saying you're getting attached to

She pretending mockery, but I have her attention. “… But

“So?”

your

off the small round cake, dropping back into the napkin and she

do you keep

mouth hanging a

was to watch me rot, you have your camera there.” I jerk my chin up to the

do want me to feed you? We

you could leave me a bag of potatoes and come once

your only friend, Sola? Is that it? You've murdered everyone else

her head, giggling. “So, you're

worth it? 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

back in her seat, arches her

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

“Solana…” she hisses.

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

on her heel, she

the jab of pain in my ankle as the chain snaps taut, I snatch up the discarded meal from the filthy concrete,

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

single bite taken from the corner. And I

not eaten anything like this for…

For how long?

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

had a

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

pulp goes down the wrong way and suddenly

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

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