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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 gunmen, soldiers,

It’s just a rat…

the dark openings, more scratching.

enough into an abyss,

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

come equipped with fists and feet. Between

*****

know

Interest flickers over her eyes. She takes something from her lunchbox, unwrapping one of her usual dainties from a napkin. “What

kidnap or hostage situation, the prisoner forms an attachment to

sniggers. “You saying you're getting

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

“So?”

I your

you’re my friend?” The napkin produces a brigadeiro. A flake of chocolate cracks off

do you keep coming

pauses in her chewing, mouth

was to watch me rot, you have your camera

have to feed you. I assume you do want me to feed you? We can always

of potatoes and come once

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

head, giggling. “So, you're my

and save you, Larry? You believe you're worth saving? That there's anyone out there who thinks you're worth it? The daughter you had slated as a sex-slave when she was a kid? That middle-aged hooker? You've not changed,

her arms, sits back in her seat, arches her

mild. “Did I 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.

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

on her heel, she stalks

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

to the green blink of the camera. It hardly matters. My attention is on the wealth in

a single bite taken from the corner.

not eaten anything like

For how long?

idea. Weeks? Months? My sense of time is

had a

then another, I ram

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

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

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