He worked his fingers, one by one. His wrists, elbows, shoulders. Feeling every ache along every nerve, in every bone. He’d been broken, he remembered enough to know that. Put back together, but like a shattered vase, incapable of holding water. He studied his reflection. The eyes blinked when he wanted them to. The mouth opened and closed. This was his face in the mirror, but he didn’t recognize it. The ever-present agony was becoming memory, but that too could be a trick. They took the suffering away, only to return it a deca-fold. When he shattered the mirror with his fist it made a new, fresh pain, the shards of glass slicing at his skin. Making him bleed. Dispassionately, he watched the bright drops splash from his wounds onto the white tile floor. Then he wrapped his hand in a towel until the bleeding stopped. The woman had brought him a tray as she’d promised. The food on it was real—not broth or pudding or ration paste, but thick slices of bread and milka, a portion of grains and greens.
