Ben, the burger was freshly made a few minutes ago. He breathed in the scent of the world as humans walked past him. Ben was walking the runway, flaunting his lettuce with his narcissistic persona. Then a wandering human approached our burger boy. His personality triggered human hunger and appetite. Before Ben reacted, he entered the digestive system.
Starting his perilous journey in the oral cavity, he was bashed against the hard palate. The teeth and tongue violently bullied him. Ben was no longer confident, instead he feared for his life. His narcissistic burger days are soon to be over. Saliva rushes in from the salivary glands to break down his fat. Here enters saliva's henchman amylase.
Ben tried to negotiate with the teeth and tongue to let him go, but they wouldn’t listen, butchering burger-boy into pieces. They kept on bashing him over and over again. Finally, they stopped until Ben saw the pharynx. He crossed over the trachea with help from the epiglottis. Although after the ingestion, he felt the need to wreak revenge on the foul human. Desperate for a change, he tried to climb into the trachea, but that opportunity was long gone.
Our narcissistic burger boy entered the esophagus soon to realize a shocking truth. He was no longer a burger, but instead a bolus. The esophagus used the power of peristalsis on him. Peristalsis is an involuntary constriction and relaxation of the muscles in the esophagus for Ben's passage into the stomach. These wave-like movements were a gigantic tsunami for poor Ben. Ben could not help but regret ever being confident. He had a life to live and now he is stuck here in the esophagus of a human. Approximately a few seconds later, he could feel himself enter the stomach. The most treacherous organ of all.
The stomach was more than he would have ever imagined. The walls of the stomach churned him over and over again. This is mechanical digestion. Chemical digestion is yet to come to act on our selfish friend. Hydrochloric acid broke down Ben's proteins. The enzyme pepsin, also produced from the stomach wall, joined hydrochloric acid to break his proteins perpetually. Ben could see the acid burn his insides. All of the protein he contained left him with no apologies. The digestion process could not get any better.
After about 7 hours, he could see himself entering the small intestine.
Ben knew that now he was no longer a bolus but a chyme. By now, he could face no more treachery and the reality is Ben knew the digestion process was a long way till the end. He moved along the small intestine as his thoughts of the pancreas brought chills down his spine. The pancreas delivered digestive juices and insulin to further digest our poor burger boy. Suddenly, Ben could feel the enzymes the pancreas released gaining on him. Trypsin took away all of his proteins. Amylase took away his carbohydrates. The Lipase stole all of his fats. The pancreas might be crucial for humans, but certainly not for Ben.
During the small intestine times, villi absorbed all of his nutrients and transported them across the human body. Ben's thoughts drifted to his acquaintance with the liver. The liver is known for swerve personality. Some of its functions are to process the blood, create nutrients, and metabolize drugs so the human body can easily digest them. The liver serves about 300 different roles in digesting our burger friend. After three hours of moving through the small intestine could see himself entering the large intestine.
The large intestine did not do a lot of pain to Ben. The large intestine only absorbed the water and salts from Ben. Ben noticed the areas in the large intestine were dry. There was not a lot of water left here. As Ben traveled the large intestine chute, his nightmare with gallbladder has not yet left his memories. The gallbladder is another organ not often recognized in the system. Ben knows it is a pouch-like organ in the upper right across the human stomach. The gallbladder stores bile produced by the liver to help break down fatty foods. His thoughts wandered back to the large intestine. Even though the large intestine did not absorb many nutrients, it is one of the most important organs that produce vitamins. The large intestine houses trillions of bacteria, responsible for making nutrients needed to help the human body survive. After about 16 hours of sitting in the large intestine, and torturous journey made him extremely weak.
To our dismay, Ben had transformed into feces. As he made his way into the rectum, he acknowledged his purpose. It was simple actually to comprehend. All the rectum had to do was hold the feces until it was ready for evacuation. The rectum would tell the human, it was time to use the restroom. He made his way into the anus which also serves another simple purpose, opening to the end of the digestive tract.
Ben saw his whole life flash before his eyes. He knew his purpose and, he had to warn others not to experience the same, but it was too late. He was already flushed down the toilet.
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