A Thought. . . .

One recent morning, just after I rose from sleep and made my usual way to the bathroom, I listened carefully to my body. I heard the usual cracks and pops of joints I hear almost every morning -- knees, elbows, back, neck -- but this time I heard all the liquid sounds.

I’m sure I’d heard some of these before, but I had never noticed how many of them there are. I listened to all of them happen, all together, one by one over the course of several minutes. They were small, discrete gurgles and blips, distinct and brief, as various liquids and semi-solids shifted inside.

Most of them came from my gut and lower abdomen, of course: various materials shifting in my intestines now that I had altered position from supine to erect, urine gurgling out of my bladder or shifting from the kidneys as the bladder emptied, I imagine. But occasionally I heard something elsewhere: in my stomach, even (I believe) my throat.

I flashed on a sudden mental image of an elaborate chemistry set, with liquids dripping and flowing into and out of beakers, flasks, Erlenmeyer bulbs, condensers, funnels, and retorts . . . which, in a way, is exactly what we are.