Michael Bunker - WICK

“An old aluminum soda can!” Elsie shouted from one of the bedrooms.

“Keep it!” Peter responded.

“An empty bourbon bottle!” Natasha yelled, even though she was just fifteen feet away in the little kitchen nook, searching through the cabinets.

“Keep it!” Peter yelled back, laughing.

“A knitting needle!” Elsie hollered.

“Keep it!” Peter and Lang shouted back, in unison. Lang was now laughing through the pain, and the diversion was good for him.

“This place is a veritable treasure trove of valuable artifacts,” he said. He was surprised that there were so many useful things still available in the cabin—items most people would probably think were useless.

Peter took the hot coffee cup away from the fire and allowed it to cool for thirty seconds or so. Then he handed it to Lang and told him to drink it all down.

“Swallow it to the dregs, son. That concoction will make you right as rain.”

Lang did what he was told and scowled a bit from the strange oiliness in the water.

“A quarter bag of sugar!” Natasha yelled.

“Keep it!” Lang shouted, chuckling at the game.

“Woah! Wait!” Peter said. “Did you say sugar , Natasha?”

“Yes, Peter. Refined sugar. Kind of clumpy, but still white.”

“Oh my goodness,” Peter said, and excitement lit up his features. “Bring it here, daughter. You may just be a lifesaver!”

Natasha walked over by the fire with the bag of sugar. “Why?” she asked. “What good is sugar? Are we going to eat it?”

“Well, young lady, refined and bleached sugar has a multitude of excellent uses, but eating it isnot one of them. In fact, one of the poorest uses of refined sugar is as a food substance. It has killed more humans than Stalin and Mao combined.” He paused, winking at Lang, as if to say… it’s true … then he continued. “But it is good for many medicinal reasons, not the least of which is the fact that sugar and honey have been used as an antibacterial agent for millennia.” The older man began to elucidate on the healing properties of sugar but, at that moment, Natasha and Lang were not entirely paying attention. They were looking at one another.

When Natasha had entered the room with the bag of sugar, she’d glanced sideways at Lang. They caught one another’s attention and held the look for what was a tiny moment that seemed like much longer to each of them. The glance was a tiny visual embrace, but then they released it and smiled to one another, as if to say… There he goes again .

Monday

No one got much sleep. Treating Lang’s infected wound stretched into the wee hours of the morning, and it had been a soul-wrenching mind siege, every single minute of it.

Before Natasha found the sugar, Peter hadn’t had much hope left at all. The placebo trick wasn’t real or tangible, but, at the time, it was the only real hope he had of halting or reversing Lang’s infection.

The boy had been valiant. He had not even complained, not once, though Peter knew that he was in severe pain. In the older man’s mind, finding the sugar had been a miracle. He’d exhausted his knowledge and experience, and, without just such a miracle, a stupid mind game was all that he had remaining in his bag of tricks.

Peter wasn’t sure how far to take the whole miracle thing. Even if we had the strongest antibiotics, nothing can guarantee success , Peter thought. He grimaced, thinking that such was always the case. There were never any guarantees. Perfectly healthy people were dying by the thousands and tens of thousands every day.

He recalled the story of a group of people who had rescued a young, injured seal. They worked hard and nursed the seal back to health, and on a glorious day under a bright, blue sky they released the seal back into the wild with great fanfare, only to have the seal eaten by a huge shark within seconds of being set free. Life is tenuous. Peter knew that. Even when everything goes right, it is tenuous. He wasn’t deceived about the probabilities of any of them living through the next year. My dear uncle , he thought…

Peter recalled his uncle Volkhov, and smiled when he considered what Lev would have thought of this young man who was being so brave. He wondered, grimly, whether his uncle would turn out to be right — if he’d been correct when he’d predicted that more than 90% of the population would die within a year.

Locating the sugar changed everything. Sugar, indeed, was one of the most effective natural treatments for infection known to man. This was no tall tale or attempt at alchemic voodoo. The problem is that, in order to apply the sugar remedy properly, the wound had to be opened, debrided and prepared. That meant that, due to the pain and sensitivity caused by the infection, Peter had been forced to subject Lang to a torturous several hours of the most excruciating pain that either one of them could have ever imagined.

Using the knife from Lang’s pack, sterilized and wielded somewhat clumsily by a man who was knowledgeable and wise, if not practiced and efficient, Peter had removed all of the dead and infected flesh, some of it already turning gangrenous and rotting into the wound. The process was slow and exceedingly painful.

The debridement, which entailed the physical removal of all dead and infected material from the wound, was difficult, and Lang had to suffer through it without any anesthesia. They didn’t even have the vodka. That had been in Peter’s backpack when it was stolen. All they had now was the leather sheath, and Lang had endured the torture admirably.

After cleaning and debriding the bullet hole (on both sides), a waiting period ensued while the wound bled a bit, and then they waited until that blood seepage stopped and coagulation had begun. Peter then packed the wound with the processed white sugar, which would act much as it does when it is used as a preservative on meat, blending with the blood and juices to create a thick “syrup” that then caused osmotic shock to the cells in the wound.

Peter explained this all to Natasha as he performed the treatment.

Elsie also sat and listened, taking notes in case she ever needed to remember how to do this. Taking notes also helped Elsie keep her mind off of the pain that Lang was evidently suffering.

Peter spoke on. “Osmotic shock means that the cells will give up their moisture and basically become dehydrated. This will rob the infection and bacteria of oxygen and water needed to spread and grow.” He raised his hands, as if making a choking motion.

“Sugar has been used to treat serious battle wounds for centuries, and, even in the 21st century, some doctors and experts had come to believe that it should be the primary means of treating bullet wounds and subsequent infections.”

Peter and his lectures, Natasha thought for a split second. She looked at Lang but he did not meet her gaze. He seemed to be too weak to show her any interest.

Hours later, Lang rested comfortably, and the women were off talking in one of the other rooms of the cabin.

Peter ruminated on one of those odd little coincidences in life. Really, and truly, they have no real reason to exist. And yet they do, those moments of perfect harmony and beauty.

At that very moment, Peter was standing guard over his flock like a mother goose, or a father goose. He was thinking about the usefulness of the sugar. And he was thinking how that such knowledge—so much of it—is lost on the new generations. Then again, he also realized that he did not know as much as his Uncle Lev. So many people , Peter thought, do not know or value what they have right there in front of them. If only they had eyes to see.