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

an abyss, the abyss will gaze

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

equipped with teeth and whiskers. I come equipped

*****

do you know what Stockholm syndrome

lunchbox, unwrapping one of her usual dainties from a napkin. “What

the label for a psychological condition where, in a kidnap or hostage situation, the prisoner

sniggers. “You saying you're getting attached to

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

“So?”

your only

skirts her lips. “Friend? 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 keep

her chewing, mouth hanging a

If all you wanted was to watch me rot, you

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

once

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,

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 going to make you

sits back in her seat, arches her brows. “I am making you

I say otherwise? I'm not claiming to have changed. Who ever really changes?” I raise my gaze again,

“Solana…” she hisses.

the rancid concrete, some of it dropping just this side of that painted line, now less than white. Even under the

heel, she

discarded meal from the filthy concrete, scrabbling

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

bite taken from the corner. And

eaten anything like

For how long?

sense of time is out of the

had

a mouthful of empanada, then another, I ram the

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

to swallow, gagging on my scavenged meal, I barf it up, where it plops in

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