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

into an abyss, the abyss

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

I come equipped with fists and feet. Between us, we settle an uneasy

*****

know

from her lunchbox,

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

sniggers. “You saying you're getting attached to

have her attention. “… But

“So?”

your only

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

why do you

pauses in her chewing, mouth hanging a little

all you wanted was to watch me rot, you have

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

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 far as I can reckon, you're here

I continue. “Am I your only friend, Sola? Is that

“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 of my life. Along with all the others you did the same

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

voice mild. “Did I say otherwise? I'm not claiming to have changed.

“Solana…” she hisses.

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

her heel,

at the fallen food, ignoring the jab of pain in my ankle as the chain snaps taut, I snatch up the discarded meal from the filthy concrete, scrabbling to grab broken fragments of meat in

green blink of the camera. It hardly matters. My attention

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

not eaten anything like this for…

For how long?

idea. Weeks? Months? My sense of time is

had a

a mouthful of empanada, then another, I ram the

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

barf it up, where it plops in a

The Novel will be updated daily. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

Comments ()

0/255