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

into an abyss, the abyss will

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

comes equipped with teeth and whiskers. I come

*****

do you know what Stockholm syndrome

over her eyes. She takes something from her lunchbox, unwrapping one of her

label for a psychological condition where, in a kidnap or hostage

you're getting

attention. “… But there's

“So?”

I your only friend,

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

why do you keep

mouth

wanted was to watch me rot, you have your camera

feed you. I assume you do want me to feed

that were the only reason, you could leave me a bag of potatoes and come once a week. Or even, once

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

“So, you're

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

back in her seat,

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

“Solana…” she hisses.

lap. The contents spill and scatter over the rancid concrete, some of it dropping just this side of

her heel, she stalks

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

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.

eaten anything like this for…

For how long?

Weeks? Months? My sense of time is out of

I had a

another, I ram the food into my

down the wrong way and suddenly

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

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