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…

scratching. And a

gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

come equipped with fists and

*****

do you know

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

a kidnap

you're getting attached to

have her attention. “… But there's a reverse condition. It's called Lima

“So?”

I your

brigadeiro. A flake of chocolate cracks off the small round cake, dropping back

why do you keep coming

pauses in her chewing, mouth hanging a

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

you do want me to feed you? We

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 far as I can

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

head, giggling. “So, you're my

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 of my life. Along with all the others you did the same to. You’ve not changed. And I’m going to

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

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

“Solana…” she hisses.

the rancid concrete, some of it dropping just this side of that

heel,

takes no supernatural premonition to know what's coming. Launching myself at the fallen food, ignoring the jab of pain in my ankle as the chain snaps taut, I snatch up the discarded

my eyes adjust to the green blink of the camera. It

only a single bite taken from the corner.

not eaten anything like

For how long?

Weeks? Months? My sense of

had

another, I

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

I barf it up,

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