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Quarky and the Mucus factory

Sometimes I have wondered, how does the flu factory work? Millions of flu virus workers fighting against the body to produce unending tonnes of mucus, which fail to subside on an Antibiotic attack, yogic exercises or unending physical exercise or was it something else?

One of my close friends - Quarky wanted answers to these questions too. With a lot of investigative traits in him, he volunteered to venture into the unknown - the erstwhile unsolved mysteries of mankind.

This is his account when he entered my body for what he later called - the out of body - experience in a sarcastic way!

I entered the oral tract and made my way down. From the books I read, I knew that I had to make a real fast move over to the trachea.
For newbies in human anatomy- the alimentary canal is the passage straight up to the stomach and much before I reach the stomach, there is a flap called the epiglottis which covers the wind pipe or the trachea from the food pipe

To make the long story short while the food passes down the food pipe, I have to force open the epiglottis and make my way down the trachea and I know -- I would have to make it fast. Probably some James Bondesque stunts - hmm. Lets see.


It wasn't easy: Nik swallowed me with some fluids, I was gushing down like a Grade 6 Waterfall and the moment of truth arrived. In a swift turn of events, I swung and held the epi(that's what I ll call it now on)and arched my fin around it. Turned the flap 180 degrees and jumped in. Some fluid mad e its way in with me too- forcing Nik to regurgitate. I had not anticipated this and I was being forced out, before the mission even began. But I held on to the epi for dear life.

That passed and I was relieved that it did.But the going was going to get tougher.
I had just entered the mucus factory and it was slimy and slippery and I just went sliding down the trachea and hit the division into the 2 lungs.I put on my Magnifying glasses with a 100X Optical zoom and what I saw was some experience!

There were these thin tooth-pick like creatures, innumerable ones which were slowly carrying around this mucus and putting it all over the layers- So these are the good workers isn't it? After all Mucus is a protective substance.Just then! some kind of a particle appeared to get into the tract. Probably dust, and then I saw these Tooth-pickies panic, They started attacking the dust, and in the process - spraying the mucus around. This excess mucus was being thrown off through Nik's nose. Yuck!!
It was a difficult span of time for me, when every sneeze caused by the efforts of these good pickies to throw out the dusties - seemed to blast me out- But I was not going to give up.

And then I saw the baddies too! Tooth-picks again but dark in color, these were the bad men. They were holding the mucus membrane to ransom and squeezing mucus out of it. What fun were they deriving from this was beyond my understanding! They were many more in number than the good pickies and they were stretching the mucus membrane to its limit. Gosh!

So the flu factory has the good guys and the baddies both equal contributors. My research had finished Phase 1 and it was time to leave!
I could be called Quarky the MucusMan after this trip! On one of the next sneezes, I let myself go like I would during a free fall, and there!

I was out into the open again!