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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

It’s just a rat…

the dark openings, more scratching. And a nose pokes

if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

with teeth and whiskers. I come equipped with fists and feet. Between us, we settle an

*****

know what Stockholm

She takes something from her lunchbox, unwrapping one of her

a kidnap or hostage situation,

sniggers. “You saying you're getting attached to

me...” Her head tilts. She pretending mockery, but I have her attention. “… But there's a reverse

“So?”

your only

napkin produces a brigadeiro. A flake of chocolate cracks off the small round cake, dropping back into the napkin and she dabs it

you

in her chewing, mouth hanging a

you keep coming? If all you wanted was to watch me rot, you have your

you. I assume you do want me to feed you?

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

I your only friend, Sola? Is that it?

giggling. “So, you're my

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, Larry. I can see right through you. The same heartless bastard that shipped me out to dig up potatoes for the rest of

seat, arches her brows.

otherwise? I'm not claiming to have changed. Who ever really changes?” I

“Solana…” she hisses.

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

her heel, she stalks

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 light winks out and I'm left in

camera. It

untouched, only a single bite taken from

anything like this

For how long?

idea. Weeks? Months? My sense of

had a

of empanada, then another,

down the wrong way and suddenly

I barf it up, where it plops in a saliva-coated

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