Breathing, inhaling, the air washes over delicate branches, quivering, as the gases are exchanged.  Muscles stretch and flex, with the white cage rising and falling.  Deeper the air is sucked in, deeper is the stretch for the tissues, and the nerves sing in exaltation as the air feeds and cleanses and renews.  As a domino chain, everything along the system pumps, exchanges matter, burns energy, and is cleansed, and able to continue their purpose with the renewal of oxygen fed blood.  I sit and breathe, relishing the feeling of being alive, closing my eyes and seeing the many parts of the machine quivering with life.  Everything continues their cycle in order to ensure the survival of each tiny cell, so that I might live.  But there is a change, slow, subtle, yet dangerous.  Wisps of something new sneak in with the clean, clean air, making the tiny branches shrink away in terror and shrivel as they slowly begin to die with the new toxin.  The nerves scream in warning along this vast system, and everything struggles to keep up with the new invader.  After a while the heart begins to struggle to keep things flowing smoothly, building mass to its own small frame.  The small currents stutter and ebb as the vessels flex in confusion with the odd flow, and everything begins to make adjustments, cells begin to change.  The machine is shutting down.  Yet the intruder continues to come in with the air, continues to renew the strength of its poison, and the body cries out in confusion at this treachery and betrayal.  They have worked so hard to keep me alive, yet I cannot hear them anymore.  I am truly sick and dying of a disease of the mind as powerful as the heart.