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…
more scratching. And a
if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will
Who said that?
Nietzsche?
Depressing bastard…
I come equipped with
*****
know what Stockholm
lunchbox, unwrapping one
psychological condition where, in a kidnap
you're
“… But there's a reverse condition. It's called Lima syndrome, where the
“So?”
I your
off the small round cake, dropping back into the napkin and she dabs it up
you keep
mouth hanging a
rot, you have
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
your only friend, Sola? Is that it? You've murdered everyone else
giggling. “So, you're my
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
seat, arches her brows. “I am making
have changed. Who ever really changes?” I raise
“Solana…” she hisses.
from her lap. The contents spill and scatter over the rancid concrete, some of it dropping
her heel, she stalks
ankle as the chain snaps taut, I snatch up the discarded meal from
blind, my eyes adjust to the green blink of the camera. It hardly matters. My attention is on the wealth in my
bite taken from the corner.
eaten anything like this
For how long?
no idea. Weeks? Months? My sense
had a
of empanada, then another, I
goes down the wrong way and suddenly I’m no longer eating, but coughing and
my scavenged meal, I barf it up, where
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