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Late that night, a voice at the door said, ''Come over!'' It was one of the older guards, who had always been humane. ''Why aren't you eating your meals?'' she asked me. ''I don't know how to eat without using my hands,'' I said. ''Think hard. There is a way. You have a spoon.'' The next morning, when the guard called the prisoners to get up, I felt something sticky and wet on my hands. Turning to the quilt, I saw stains of blood mixed with pus. The handcuffs had already broken my skin and were cutting into my flesh. I shuddered with a real fear of losing the use of my hands. But I figured out how to eat. When the woman from the kitchen offered me the container with rice, I turned my back to the door, and she placed the container in my hands. I took it to the table, picked up the plastic spoon and shoveled the rice and cabbage onto the table. With each movement of my hands, the handcuffs dug deeper into my flesh. My whole body was racked with pain, and tears came into my eyes. But I persisted until I got quite a bit of the rice onto the table. Then I turned around, bent over the table and ate like an animal. Although the rice I managed to eat each day did make me feel stronger, I began having difficulty walking. For some reason, the handcuffs were affecting my feet. Like my hands, they felt hot and painful. I staggered about, for my feet could not bear even the reduced weight of my emaciated body. The stains of blood and pus on the quilt became larger and more numerous as the handcuffs cut through more skin on my wrists. Either the weather suddenly got a lot warmer or I was feverish, for I no longer felt the cold but shivered from pain whenever I had to move my hands or stagger across the room.