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…

faced down

It’s just a rat…

the dark openings, more scratching. And a nose

you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

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

*****

know what Stockholm

Interest flickers over her eyes. She takes something from her lunchbox,

psychological condition where, in a kidnap or hostage situation, the prisoner forms an

saying you're getting attached

her attention. “… But there's a reverse

“So?”

I your only friend,

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

do you keep

her chewing, mouth hanging a

all you wanted was to watch me rot, you have your camera there.” I

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

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

your only friend, Sola? Is that it?

head, 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

her seat, arches her brows. “I am making

eyes, I keep my voice mild. “Did I say otherwise? I'm not claiming to have changed. Who ever

“Solana…” she hisses.

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

her heel, she

taut, I snatch up the 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

the camera. It hardly matters. My attention is on the wealth in

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

not eaten anything like this

For how long?

idea. Weeks? Months? My sense of time

had a

a mouthful of empanada, then another, I

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

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

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