Mr. Apple's Journey

                One morning, I woke up just like every other average morning.  Except this morning, something felt different.  I wasn’t sure if it was the way the sun beat down on my smooth skin just after the break of dawn, or the slight change in pitch in the distant birds’ calls ringing throughout the still morning air.  Perhaps it was the diluted foul scent of the freshly placed manure on the opposing side of the farm.  I’m not quite sure what, but whatever it was, it gave me the sense that something was different, that something was about to change; and change it did.

                Every young apple dreams of the day when they are finally plucked from their tree and devoured.  It is what all of us apples dream about our whole lives.  We spend our time in the tree, waiting for someone to come along and pick us, and hoping we aren’t unfortunate enough to suffer the cruel fate of Rotting, a fatal disease to our kind. 

                I’m not a particularly appealing apple.  I mean, who would choose an apple with uneven, speckled skin, with a name like Francesco?  This is precisely why I was so surprised when one man came up to my tree, pulled me down, and bit a nice, large chunk out of me.  I could feel his teeth gnawing at my skin and flesh, trying to break me down into smaller pieces as his salivary glands worked at moistening me up.  Once I was finally soft and small enough, he swallowed.  His esophagus did not hesitate to violently hurl me down deep into the man’s innards, peristalsis working effectively as I felt the muscles contracting and relaxing around me. 

                After I had travelled the full way down, I landed with a splash in his stomach.  Acids and digestive enzymes began to break me down to get to my cherished protein.  I was churned around in there, and let me tell you, being tossed around in a sea full of liquids that wear you down is not fun.

                Once the stomach had had its way with me, I entered the small intestine to further the digestion and diffusion of my nutrients.  The liver produced bile which the gall bladder then stored and released into the small intestine.  This emulsified my fat into tiny, little droplets.  Simultaneously, the pancreas released digestive juices of its own to aid in the digestion of my proteins, fats, carbohydrates, and nucleic acids.  I endured six meters of the torture and physical turmoil of having my nutrients extracted from me. 

                At last, I was free of the small intestine, however I was not finished travelling through tubes.  I still had one and a half meters of large intestine left to go.  It sucked all the water out of me, drying me out and causing me to clump up.  I was then brown, solid, and gooey. 

                After a great deal of my dihydrogen oxide had been taken out of me and diffused into the rest of the body, I was dropped off in the rectum.  I waited there for a while.  Eventually, after what seemed to be an eternity, I was discharged from the man’s body through his anus.  I am now sitting in his toilet, recounting my long, tiresome journey through his body.  I am very weak now, all of my nutrients and water have been extracted from me; the man took them for himself.  I know that once I am flushed, it is certain I will die. I haven’t the strength to go on. 

                As I await my death, I sit here thinking about how amazing the human body really is.  I have been through mechanical, chemical, and physical digestion; things some apples can only dream of.  Yet, I have lived them.  I have been transformed from a fresh apple into feces, human waste.  I have travelled the entirety of the human digestive tract and have witnessed the jobs and horrors of the accessory organs.  It was a surreal experience that I shan’t forget when I arrive in fruit heaven.