A Gift from Afar

Meela Hahn was dreaming of food when she was awakened by the day's first three blasts of the toxicity sirens. She wasn't frightened by them any more. They had been a part of her life now for many years and were, in her imagination, loud screams that she pretended were hers.

Each day when the air was at its worst the sirens would wail three prolonged screams every hour to warn of the dangers of being outside. Today was the fourth consecutive day that the air had been intolerable and all the survivors stayed sealed up in their dark and dingy spaces as they waited for a chance to get back out and search for food and water.

This particular day was worse than most for Meela. Worry had been a constant companion since the last time she had ventured out with her sister Lita, who now lay sleeping on an old sofa cushion only a few feet away.

The sisters had made regular trips to an old well that their mother had shown them before she died only a year ago. She had lived in the area before the uprisings had broken the government and brought all the destruction that laid waste to everyone's dreams.

Pollution and disease had swept across the country like leaves blowing in a storm, taking down towns and cities one by one until there were so many deaths that everyone who was left just lost track or stopped counting.

It was only because of Meela's mother that the two girls had managed to survive at all. She had been a strong and clever woman who taught her girls to be resourceful and had shown them how to survive.

Meela had tears growing in her eyes as she remembered her mother who had fought so hard as a nurse during the dark years. She had helped save so many people, but in the end it made little difference. Her life had been taken by two raiders she had distracted to keep them from finding her girls.

Meela and Lita had seen it all from a hiding spot only a short distance away. Both had wanted to scream, but they had been taught well and knew that they too would be killed or worse if they made a single sound, so they simply watched and sobbed in horrified silence.

There was only a single, narrow window high up on the wall in the corner of the church basement where Meela and Lita had found a safe place with their mother years before. It seemed like a lifetime since she and her mother had rearranged shelving and old pews beneath the sanctuary to create a hidden space to shelter them all.

This morning there was no bright sunlight, but the day had dawned and the gloom was lifted slightly by the light filtering in from above Lita's bed.

Meela felt helpless as she watched her sister sleeping. Lita's skin looked pale and clammy as she turned her head toward the light and made soft dreaming sounds. Meela could see the dark stain that had slowly oozed to the surface of the bandage on Lita's leg during the night.

It had only gotten worse every day since the injury and anyone could see that infection was growing to a very dangerous point.

Meela sat up on her bed that had been made from an old padded altar. As she leaned forward her necklace swung out and back,tapping her lightly on her chest. It was a beautiful heart-shaped silver locket given to her by her mother. It was the only real possession she had with any value and each time it tapped her chest she imagined it was her mother reaching out from beyond to give her strength.

Meela took the locket in her hand and gave it a loving squeeze to draw out the courage it contained. She snapped it open with a tiny click and looked at the picture of her young mother in a smiling embrace with a man she knew was her father, but that she had never known.

The happiness she saw on their faces was like a tonic to her. She barely remembered a time when people smiled. She was 17 now and Lita had just turned 14 two days before the accident. Neither of them had found a reason to laugh or smile since their mother had been taken.

Lita groaned softly and opened her eyes. Meela reached down and brushed her forehead and cheek softly with the back of her fingers. She could feel the heat of a growing fever in her little sister and fear gripped her heart even as she forced an encouraging smile for Lita.

“Are you feeling any better?” Meela asked quietly.

“My leg is burning a little and I’m really hungry,” Lita answered. “Do we have any water left?”

Meela reached for an old plastic jug on the shelf and gave it a shake. “Looks like we’ve still got about a half gallon,” she said, and passed the jug to Lita.

“I just need a few sips,” Lita said. “I don’t want to waste it.”

“It’s not a waste if you need it, little sister,” said Meela. “Just save me a little. We can’t get back to the well for a while when the toxicity count is this high. Just let me have a look at your leg and then well have a few bites to eat. I saved half a can of chili since it’s your favorite.”

Lita drank in tiny sips as Meela uncoiled the bandage. The last layer was the worst and Meela could see that more pus was developing between the butterfly strips she had used to close the nasty gash.

The wound was about four inches long and thankfully not too deep. Lita had stumbled on their last outing and caught her leg on the corner of an old piece of roofing metal that was lying in a pile of debris not far from the old well.

The initial bleeding was scary and they were a quarter mile from home when it happened. With no first aid kit or bandages of any kind on hand, Meela had acted quickly by tearing a sleeve off her shirt and wrapping Lita’s leg tight enough to slow the blood flow.

That first bandage had been replaced many times since then and Meela had used vodka from a bottle they found to clean the wound.

“It’s gonna sting a bit,” Meela said as she soaked a piece of cloth in vodka. “I guess I don’t need to keep saying that, huh?”

“It’s okay, Mee. I’m used to it. Just try to make it quick.”

Once the bandage was changed, Meela got down the hominy and the two of them ate it out of the can with a plastic spoon. It was a somber moment. Meela knew that they had reached a very dangerous place with the injury and Lita could sense it in her sister’s voice.

What few medicines they had scrounged over the years were useless against an infection. Meela needed antibiotics, but had little more than Tylenol, aspirin, and a tube of althlete’s foot cream.

She told Lita to try to sleep a little more and then tried to think of some way to help her sister. Her thoughts kept swirling back to her mother and she would squeeze the locket in her hand and wonder what her mother would do.

The warmth of that locket in her palm soothed her and made her think of all the times she’d seen it dangling from her mother’s neck as she read some book in the faded light of their basement prison.

Reading had been about the only pleasure that her mother had left and she constantly looked for books whenever they went out in search of food in old abandoned stores or houses.

Meela suddenly remembered that her mother’s pile of books had a few medical texts in it that she had discovered on the shelf of a old garage one day while they were looking for camping supplies.

She started digging though the book pile in the corner until she found a thick, gray medical encyclopedia. It was a very old book with small type, large words, and a smattering of interesting illustrations. Meela began to read.

Lita cried out and woke Meela, who found herself still sitting upright with the open book on her lap. She quickly moved over to Lita’s bed and touched her forehead.

The real fever had finally come and Lita was groaning and squeezing her leg just above the wound to somehow try and stem the pain.

Meela gave her one of the aspirin tablets and a sip of water. She began to relax after a few minutes and Meela went back to her reading. This time she was focused by her fear for Lita.

Several hours passed and Meela was growing weary of reading. Then suddenly she slammed the book shut and began biting on one of her fingernails. She stared off at nothing for a very long time, mumbled “I love you, mother,” and set off to work.

There weren’t a lot of places to look, so it wasn’t long before she managed to find an old nail file and a couple of sheets of paper.

Meela sat down at their tiny table made from an old crate and laid the paper out to cover the top. She reached beneath her hair, unfastened the locket and laid it on the table. A long moment passed after she opened the locket as she sat quietly just staring at the tiny picture with smiling faces.

She used the point of the nail file to pry out the photo and then began steadily rubbing the locket against the file. It wasn’t a very coarse file and progress was very slow, but she kept a steady pace, switching hands as one or the other grew tired.

Meela lost track of time and daylight was beginning to fade by the time she had accumulated a pile of the tiny silver particles on the paper. More than half the locket was gone and she laid what was left aside and carefully curled the paper to collect all the silver in a neat line down the center.

A small bottle of baby oil was on the shelf next to other oils and ointments, so she took it down and poured all the silver into the oil. For several minutes she shook it hard to make sure that everything was thoroughly mixed, then poured a small amount onto a piece of the cleanest cloth she had.

She gently unwrapped Lita’s leg and placed the cloth directly over the wound and then wrapped it all back up again. Lita had made a couple of grunts, but never seemed to wake up, so Meela just covered her and stayed quiet.

As the night closed in and their little space went completely dark, Meela kept a vigil, watching over Lita and checking her bandage every three or four hours with her tiny keychain flashlight.

Nearly two days passed before Lita finally pushed herself up onto her elbows and said “you saved me.”

Meela had been half asleep, but snapped awake and gave Lita a little smile. “Mom saved you,” she said.

“Mom’s not here, Mee,” Lita said with an odd look.

Meela picked up the damaged locket and held it out to Lita who took it an then looked up with surprise in her eyes. “What happened?” she asked.

“Silver is antimicrobial. I read about it in one of mom’s old medical books.I made something called colloidal silver,” Meela said. “The tiny particles of silver killed the bacteria in your wound and now you don’t have a major infection any more.”

“But you destroyed mom’s locket,” Lita said sadly.

“I really don’t think mom would mind,” Meela said.

“Well, maybe she’s here after all,” said Lita.