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, soldiers,

It’s just a rat…

scratching. And a

enough into an abyss, the abyss will

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

my case, the abyss comes equipped with teeth and whiskers. I come equipped with

*****

know

lunchbox, unwrapping one of her usual dainties from a

a kidnap or hostage

sniggers. “You saying you're getting attached to

her attention. “… But there's a reverse condition. It's called Lima syndrome, where the captor comes

“So?”

your

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 she dabs it up

you keep

her chewing, mouth hanging a little open.

watch me rot, you have your

assume you do want me

reason, you could leave me a bag of potatoes and come once a week. Or even, once a month. But, so far as I can

your only friend, Sola? Is that it? You've murdered

giggling. “So, you're my friend

someone's going to come 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, 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

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

“Did I say otherwise? I'm not claiming to have changed. Who ever

“Solana…” she hisses.

says no more. Instead, she stands, the lunchbox tumbling from her lap. The contents spill and scatter over the rancid concrete, some of it dropping just this side of

on her heel, she

I snatch up the discarded meal from the filthy concrete, scrabbling to grab broken fragments of meat in one

to the green blink of the camera. It

a single bite taken from the corner.

not eaten anything like

For how long?

sense of time is out of the

I had a

empanada, then another, I

way and suddenly I’m no

swallow, gagging on my scavenged meal, I barf it up, where it plops in a saliva-coated mess onto

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