DAUGHTER OF PURITY
“AMONG ALL HER LOVERS there is none to comfort her.” Lamentations 1:2
“Wake up!” Mee-Kyong hissed in my ear.
Disoriented and exhausted, I turned toward my friend. She held her finger over her lips and nodded toward the prisoner on night duty. As my blurry vision began to focus, I saw that the young girl who was assigned to keep watch was asleep in her chair. Prisoners in the dorm were required to serve one night shift each month. They had to stay awake and report everything that happened: which prisoners slept, which prisoners stayed awake, which prisoners complained before going to bed. They even reported sleep-talking, so every night I begged myself not to utter something incriminating while I slept.
The fact that the prisoner on night duty was asleep meant two thi
