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…

dark openings, more scratching. And

enough into an abyss, the abyss will

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

I come equipped with fists and

*****

you know

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

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

sniggers. “You saying you're

But there's a reverse condition. It's

“So?”

I your only friend,

You think you’re my friend?” The napkin produces a brigadeiro. A flake of chocolate cracks off the small round

why do you

chewing, mouth hanging a little open.

keep coming? If all you wanted was to watch me rot, you have your camera there.” I jerk my chin up to

to feed you. I assume you do want me to

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

and swallows, not speaking, simply regarding me. I continue. “Am I your only

“So,

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

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

say otherwise? I'm 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 dropping just this side of

heel,

discarded meal from the filthy concrete, scrabbling to

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

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

eaten anything like this for…

For how long?

idea. Weeks? Months? My sense of time is out of

I had a

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

wrong way and suddenly I’m no longer eating, but

scavenged meal, I barf it up, where it plops in a

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