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 gunmen, soldiers,

It’s just a rat…

more scratching. And

enough into an abyss, the abyss will

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

come

*****

do you know what Stockholm

her lunchbox,

where, in a kidnap or hostage situation, the prisoner forms an attachment

“You saying you're

tilts. She pretending mockery, but I have her attention. “… But there's a reverse condition. It's called Lima syndrome, where

“So?”

your only

off

you

mouth hanging a little

all you wanted was to watch me rot, you have your camera there.” I jerk my

you do want me to feed you? We can always

potatoes and come once a week. Or

chews and swallows, not speaking, simply regarding me. I continue. “Am I your only friend, Sola? Is that it? You've murdered everyone else that might get

swings her head, giggling. “So, you're

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

her arms, sits back in her seat,

changed. Who ever really changes?” I raise my gaze

“Solana…” she hisses.

spill and scatter over the rancid concrete, some of it dropping just this side of that

her heel, she stalks

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 one hand, a cake with

the camera. It hardly matters. My attention

taken from the

not eaten anything like this

For how long?

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

I had a

mouthful of empanada, then another, I ram

and suddenly I’m no longer eating, but coughing

barf it up, where it plops in a

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