By Eben van Tonder. For Kristi! 9 days to go. 11 August 2025
The Battle Plan
The Battle Plan
Atoms pair to survive.
Alone, they are unstable.
Oxygen has room for more electrons.
Alone, it is too reactive.
It seizes what it can.
It bonds to another oxygen.
O₂. The hunger is stilled.
Nitrogen is different.
It has five outer electrons.
It needs three more.
Two nitrogens meet.
They lock with a triple bond.
N₂. The strongest bond in the air.
Hard to break. Stable. Silent.
Yet sometimes — lightning.
It tears the nitrogen apart.
Confused, it reaches for oxygen.
Nitric oxide is born.
Before this moment.
Before cages are built.
Lightning forges a miracle molecule.
Sometimes — lightning.
It tears the nitrogen apart.
Confused, it reaches for oxygen.
Nitric oxide is born.
Oxygen and nitrogen meet.
Nitric oxide is born.
NO — the smallest living signal.
It opens blood vessels.
It speaks between nerves.
It kills invaders.
It locks the colour of meat.
Fast. Fleeting. Powerful.
Iron is a shapeshifter.
It gives electrons.
It takes them back.
Fe²⁺. Fe³⁺. Again and again.
Free iron is dangerous.
It sparks chaos.
Nature built the porphyrin cage.
Four nitrogens hold it fast.
They tame it.
They force it to serve.
Nature built the porphyrin cage:
Four nitrogen atoms, strung in a ring, hold the heart of the molecule.
A structure nature loves — thanks to a lone pair of electrons on each nitrogen, not tightly bound, ready to be given to the guest atom.
The same electron that let lightning split the sky now holds the metal in the cage.
In the bone marrow it does this, where new blood is born.
The same electron lets life breathe.
In hemoglobin, the iron waits.
Oxygen comes.
They meet.
Electrons shift.
Iron moves into the plane.
The protein changes.
Oxygen locks in.
The blood is armed.
The forge is the bone marrow.
Bones shield it.
Capillaries feed it.
Here, enzymes weave the porphyrin ring from glycine and succinyl-CoA.
Nitrogen from protein is sewn into the frame.
Ferrochelatase sets the iron in place.
Globin folds around it.
Hemoglobin is born.
Red marrow rules in youth.
It makes blood without pause.
With age, part turns yellow with fat.
Reserve for lean times.
In crisis, yellow turns red again.
The pelvis makes the most blood.
Then the spine.
The sternum.
The ribs.
The skull.
The long bones of arms and legs.
Blood and fat are bound.
Fat drives the work.
In hunger or blood loss, fat burns to feed new cells.
Iron must come from food.
Blood. Meat. Organs.
Plants give less.
Women need more.
They bleed each month.
They carry children.
The Story
So it was. Long ago.
The hunt is over.
Blood scents the air.
Men drag the kill into the village.
Children run.
Elders gather.
The meat will be divided.
One young woman cannot wait.
Her chest feels hollow.
Her blood is thin from the moon’s bleeding.
Her heart beats too hard.
She pushes through the crowd.
She slips into the hut.
Here she would lick the meat.
Drink the blood.
Feel the strength.
But no longer.
Now they hunt together.
They are one!
Out on the veld, they hunt like a pair of wolves.
He cuts into the flesh, tears out a ham muscle.
He hands it to her.
Lightning splits the sky.
Far away — yet the same force strikes within her as her teeth break the flesh.
As above, so below: in the clouds, nitrogen is split; in the veld, muscle is torn.
Both release something that feeds life.
She holds the meat.
Blood drips over her fingers.
She licks it off.
Metallic. Electric.
Her tongue knows it.
Iron. Heme iron.
In her stomach, acid will free it.
It will pass into her blood, bind transferrin, travel to the marrow.
There it will drop into porphyrin rings made from nitrogen she ate days ago.
New hemoglobin will form.
Her blood will thicken with strength.
Something else happens.
Her saliva coats the meat.
It carries nitrate.
Bacteria touch it.
They strip away oxygen.
The bacteria use the same lone pair of electrons that makes the porphyrin cage possible.
The same electron that once held the heart of the molecule now feeds the bacteria.
What emerges is nitrite.
Nitrite that can now become nitric oxide.
The bacteria now do what the lightning did before.
In the meat, nitrite becomes nitric oxide.
The nitric oxide binds the iron of myoglobin.
The red colour is fixed.
Bacteria slow.
The meat begins to cure.
She does not know the chemistry.
She knows only this: the craving is quiet.
Her breath grows easier.
Her heart calms.
Strength will return.
She knows only this: the craving is quiet.
Her breath grows easier.
Her heart calms.
Strength will return.
Outside, the village waits.
The meat will be cut, shared, roasted, dried.
Some will last longer than before.
In her, the pact of oxygen, nitrogen, iron, and electrons is renewed.
In the meat, a second pact has begun — the first steps toward man’s mastery of preservation.
Both step towards each other.
Unite in each other!
Life burns on.
