Sammy's Sad Tale

I was supposed to do a project in BIO 12 about digestion that had posters and diagrams... I wrote this instead.

Hi, I’m Sammy the Sour Patch. I have a sad tale and would like you to listen.

My day started like any other day. I was sitting, just sitting, in the dish with all of my other sour patch friends. Then a hand. A HORRIBLE hand; reached down and grabbed me. I screamed and screamed to be released from its grip. I was lifted higher and higher. I was then thrown into what I think is called a mouth. I saw them. Those hideous blackish yellow saws. Teeth. They began to chew, ripping and tearing at my flesh: mechanically sawing me in half. Then this horrible fluid was released from the salivary glands, chemically burning me. I think it was called salivary amylase? My starches, all of my starches, were torn apart to become maltose: it was terrible.

The tongue began to roll me into a bolus so I could be passed easily into the esophagus. I knew this was coming because I heard an awful sound! The soft palate began to move back, closing off the nasopharynx, and the trachea moved under the epiglottis covering the larynx. There was no escape. Then it happened. The tongue began to force me back. Not wanting to go on: I just gave up. I went limp as peristalsis forced me downward. I had no idea of what was in store. 

The pain started to numb as time passed. I may have dosed off once or twice. Half asleep, I saw it. It looked like a doorway, the cardiac sphincter. I knew that I would not like what was on the other side. I passed through it. It was dark. I felt as if I was in a mucous cocoon. Just then a wave of water hit me. Then another. This time there was something different. I sensed chlorine, could it be HCl? Another splash, but this time it burned. As the waves continued: the burning became more severe. I realized what must have happened. The pepsinogen excreted by the gastric glands must have reacted with the HCl and formed pepsin. The pain was that of my proteins being ripped by this new enzyme forming smaller peptide chains. I had now been turned into a blob of chime that would then pass through the pyloric sphincter to endure yet more painful ripping and tearing.

I reached the duodenum. I breathed a sigh of relief as sodium bicarbonate was released from the pancreas. It came rushing over my tattered body. Acting as a buffer, it neutralized all of the HCl and returned my pH to a slightly alkaline level of 8.5.  I sat waiting. Then as if the pain I endured wasn’t enough, bile rushed over my body. Like hands, it tore the fat droplets from my body. Continuously tearing them before my eyes. I still blame the liver and its accomplice the gall bladder for that. To make matters even worse; the pancreas squirted all of its juice on me. This horrible, burning juice contained enzymes such as pancreatic amylase; tearing my starches yet again into maltose, trypsin ripping my proteins into peptides, and lipase witch took the poorly tattered fat droplets and just mashed them; turning them into glycerol and fatty acid. Weeping from pain, I was hit by yet another wave. This time secreted by the intestinal walls itself. Peptidase chewed at my peptides; maltase sliced at my maltose; sucrase jabbed and my sucrose; lactase hammered at my lactose and nuclease, which ripped at my nucleotides. 

After the brutal attack I was left with amino acids, glucose, fructose, galactose, and nucleotides. I then painstakingly watched as what was left of me was gluttonously absorbed by the ileum. Its villi reaching out and sucking in all that they could attain. Peristalsis pushed me farther. This time into the colon.

I reached the colon gratefully, knowing that my ordeal was coming to a close. I began to dry out as all of the moisture was sucked from me. There was someone or something there? A whole colony in fact. The e.coli were busy digesting cellulose left by other victims. They were extracting amino acids and vitamin K and B12. I watched this in awe as peristalsis moved me farther down.

I then passed an appendix. It looked ancient and abandoned; if it hadn’t been used in over a thousand years. 

The last twenty centimeters of my journey were somewhat eerie as I passed though the rectum. It looked like a graveyard full of previous victims. And as my journey finally ended. I passed through the anal sphincter. I was left wondering why, just why, would such a monster ever put someone through such a painful ordeal.

Author's Note

I dunno... I feel like it's funny AND educational. What do you think?