I was gasping for air.

I could barely breathe. I was gasping for air.

So you'd wake up gasping with breath, because your blood chemistry has changed.

For a time, we shared the stage with our distant cousins, Neanderthal, who clearly had some spark of awareness, but whether it was the increase in the size of the brain, or the development of language, or some other evolutionary catalyst we quickly left Neanderthal gasping for survival.

But air quality will prove the more embarrassing problem next August. Television coverage of athletes gasping for breath will hardly provide Beijing with the signature Olympic image it had in mind, and growing international anxiety over climate change and other environmental hazards will ensure that such issues receive considerable media coverage.

Another time, when our path took us by a tranquil stream, I saw a man sitting and watching his line, seemingly at peace with the world, while next to him, fish he had already caught were flapping helplessly and gasping in the air. My father told me that he could not understand how anyone could enjoy an afternoon spent taking fish out of the water and letting them die slowly.