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 gunmen,

It’s just a rat…

scratching. And a nose pokes

you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

the abyss comes equipped with teeth and whiskers. I come equipped with

*****

do you know what

takes something from her lunchbox, unwrapping one of her

a kidnap or hostage situation,

saying you're getting attached

But there's a reverse condition. It's called Lima syndrome, where the captor comes to empathise

“So?”

your

chocolate cracks off the small round cake, dropping

do you

her chewing, mouth hanging

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

assume you do want me to feed you? We can always change

potatoes and come once a week. Or even, once a month. But, so far as I can reckon, you're here

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

“So, you're

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

her seat, arches

I'm not claiming to have changed. Who ever really changes?” I raise my gaze again, look into her face. “Have

“Solana…” she hisses.

lunchbox tumbling from her lap. 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 the heavy make-up, her colour has changed.

heel, she

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 other before, with a click, the

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

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

not eaten anything

For how long?

sense

I had a

mouthful of empanada, then another,

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

meal, I barf it up, where it plops in

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