The Esophagus — the Transition from the Mouth to the Interior

The esophagus is one of the quietest organs in your body. You almost never notice it. When it works well, you swallow, and everything disappears — soft, unobtrusive, self-evident. Only when it begins to speak do you even realise it exists. A pressure behind the breastbone, a lump that won't move on, a burning that creeps up from the stomach, a piece that suddenly gets stuck even though you thought you had already swallowed it. And then there is this quiet shock: that precisely the passage through which everything enters that keeps you alive is no longer clear.