The Life and Death of Ham Burgermeister As he looked about his penthouse view of the restaurant, atop the

serving table, Ham contemplated life in his warm wrapper. Little did he expect that all this would soon come to an end. Of course, he noticed how often his neighbors disappeared on those flying red trays, but it didnt wilt his lettuce to have more space to himself. No, life in his metal cubicle was just fine the way it was. Let other, younger burgers plunge into the bleak unknown. Later, just as he was dozing off into that deep part of sleep, the kind wheres it like just falling into an abyss, he was jolted into alertness by a rude hand picking him up and plopping him on to that red tray. That same hand also had the nerve to throw that idiot Chip beside him. Hes always going on and on about how cool he is because hes slim and salty but Ham just think hes a bit fried. At least they put Pops on the tray, too. Hes has such a bubbly personality, hes impossible not to like. As they were whisked away on this tray, they looked at each other pensively, wondering what was to be their fate. A sudden drop ended with an abrupt stop on some flat gray surface. Looming over them was a fat human child, pimples looking ready to burst at the slightest provocation. With a grin he reached for Chip. Staring up at him, Pops and Ham didnt have time to react before he ATE CHIP. Not that Ham care for that idiot, you understand, but more of a fear that the colossal 8th grader would eat him as well. Looking around, he prepared to make his escape when a pair of chubby hands grabbed him and took him up into the black hole that serves this human for a mouth. The giant opened wide and took a bite. His incisors bit into Hams flesh, insanely sharp canines ripping him apart. Ham screamed as pieces of his body reached the giants premolars, and ground Hams sesame seeds into dust with the added bonus of some molars crushing his tomato. The tongue moved him around, soaking his poor buns. Ham was lifted up to the hard

palate of the roof of the giants mouth, and back down to more teeth. How many does this monster have? Hysterically, Ham contemplated that he must taste good to this evil spawn, since saliva foamed around him like a flood, working its chemical digestion magic on him. The starch in his buns began to break down from the salivary amylase in the spit. The mucin was lubricating Hams body parts to aid in the impending doom of that dark cavern towards the back of the mouth. The giant masticated Ham into some sort of bolus, - he never thought he would be able to use that useless crossword masticate- and he was pushed farther back into the cavity of the pharynx. Ham screamed again as he is nearly pushed into the trachea, only to have the soft palate move to block off the passages that seem to head towards this monstrositys nasal passages, and the trachea moved under the epiglottis to cover some sort of hole that washumming? That must be the fabled larynx these humans use to communicate. With a final yelp he went into the tunnel of the esophagus. GO TOWARDS THE LIGHT GO TOWARDS THE LIGHT! But as he scrambled for the way he came in, a wave of peristalsis and Pops pushed him back down. It seemed forever, in this dark tunnel, the walls constricting around him, pushing Ham further and further into the deep unknown. As they pass through, they watch as good bacteria theres such a thing? - helped repair the walls of the digestive tract. After what seemed like forever, there was a sudden shift in the colours. It cant be light, MacDonalds knows it is dark in this evil place, but the hues that can be detected seem to have subtly shifted. Theres another rhythm, the kind you hear during lunch hour and the doors are regularly opened and closed, and Ham slammed up against some sort of portal. The cardiac sphincter opened and closed, sucking in bits and pieces of his companions. With a slurp Ham is sucked into the stomach through the muscular sphincter, the valve closing behind him, presumably to keep the children of the gastrin, the sharp hydrochloric acid that attacked the connective tissue in his patty from escaping.

At least the acid is eating away all those pesky bad bacteria. It had to be the only plus he could think of as he swirled around inside the oddly shaped sack. The bicarbonate of this place really deserved a raise. The pH was absolutely scalding. The stomach stretched out, the folds called rugae disappearing, as the sphincter allowed more and more of his and his fellow foodstuffs remains in. The stretching further swirled them around, mechanically breaking them down and down. A swish moved them closer to deep pits in the mucosa muscle layer of the stomach and they peered down into the pits where poor workers of the gastric glands could be seen laboring over the production of the gastric juice that was mixing with their remains. Too numb to feel much pity for the abused workers, they were soon enough swirled away, the enzyme pepsinogen in the in the pepsin, activated by that vile hydrochloric acid, digested Hams protein and dissolved them into the thick chyme that was all that remained of his once glorious bulk. Dang you pepsinogen. After another long stretch of time, they were moved to yet another sphincter, this time the pyloric sphincter which slurped them up and little by little deposited them into another long tube. The enzymes of the small intestine immediately went to work - dont they ever just take the day off? A bile duct in the duodenum, the first part of this tube, let in the bile produced in the pancreas. The bile emulsified the fat that Ham was so proud of in his bulk, but he would be liar if he didnt get at least a small chuckle that Chip was also being attacked. So much for slim. That fool must be full of fat, the amount of bile that attacked him. Perhaps they could have found the strength to launch an attack on the gall bladder, where the horrendous bile was storedBut the pancreatic juice flowing around them from the pancreatic duct was hydrolyzing them to glycerol and fatty acids and the sodium bicarbonate was neutralizing their chyme-selves. The proteases destroyed the last of their protein, the carbohydrases their carbs and they watched helplessly as the walls of the small intestine absorbed their molecules, as what was left of them continued down. Pancreatic enzymes in the jejunum finalized the breaking down of their chyme.

The liver had filtered out any iron and vitamins they had, and at this point they werent much more than bodiless entities. They wordlessly slipped through the ileocecal valve and entered the large intestine. They passed through the cecum, mindlessly wondering what the appendix did. There seemed to be a lot of security, maybe it fights infections? They went on a rollercoaster ride for their last moments of life. Up the ascending colon, across the transverse colon, and down the descending colon and through the sigmoid colon to enter the rectum. With a last thought, they stared blankly at the pinprick of light that was beginning to appear through the anus. Flush.