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…

more scratching. And a

an

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

my case, the abyss comes equipped with teeth and whiskers. I come equipped with fists and feet. Between us, we settle an uneasy

*****

you know

something from her lunchbox,

the label for a psychological condition where, in a kidnap or hostage situation, the prisoner forms an attachment to

you're

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

“So?”

your only

You think you’re my friend?” The napkin produces a brigadeiro. A flake of chocolate cracks off the small round cake, dropping back into the napkin and

you

mouth hanging a little

watch me rot, you have your camera there.”

assume you do want me to feed you? We can

could leave 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

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

head, giggling. “So, you're my

was a kid? That middle-aged hooker? You've not changed,

her arms, sits back in her seat, arches her

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

“Solana…” she hisses.

it dropping just this side of that painted line, now less than white. Even under the heavy make-up, her colour has changed.

her heel, she stalks

food, 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

of the camera. It hardly matters. My attention is on the

delicacy is almost untouched, only a single bite taken from the corner.

anything like this for…

For how long?

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

I had a

of empanada, then another,

much. Too soon. Half-chewed pulp goes down the wrong way and suddenly I’m

it up, where it plops in

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