Fed up with herself, Virika didn’t write for a while. Eventually thoughts did solidify, after a month, monsoon leaving her stuck indoors and remembering things.
Usha, after recovering and going back to using her normal mouth, returned to her yoga instruction.
Her part-time students had grown used to her simple Nabhimamsa instructions, but they were gone, along with her weird demonstrations. Now she wore a Kurti, hardly even doing the asana she instructed. She even pushed away the village cats.
Among the part-time students who stayed despite this, there was a rumor that she was back to tying Ardheka Bandha or Uddiyana Bandha in place with a spinal knot. Usha refused to answer their questions. All they were sure of was, whenever Usha was seen in a saree, her navel was nowhere to be found. In fact, her formerly toned belly was smooth as a plastic doll.
Without all the adults around, school children would come play at the edges of the yoga lesson. Sometimes they’d run around, and sometimes they would come sit by Usha, to show her their clumsy yoga poses, or to talk.
One little boy talked about a body he had seen in the forest on the way to school. He thought a tiger had bit it in half – the body didn’t have any legs – but he specifically denied running away scared. The body had been gone on the way home, so he concluded the tiger must have come back and eaten it. He complained his parents hadn’t believed him. Usha took special interest in this, asking where he had seen it.
A few weeks later a girl reported a strange creature on the way to school – about the size of a kickball, but not as round, skittering between the trees. Her parents thought it was just a mongoose, but it didn’t look furry. Usha was quite interested, and asked the children to tell her if they saw it again.
Over the next few days the children put together a much better description form their combined observations. The animal was not furry, but had dark skin. It had no head or legs, but it had a long scraggly tail, like a rat. It had a mouth at the other end, though nobody had seen it eat anything. It’s tail came from it’s back, but the other side was all ribs. It would quickly roll along, pushed by it’s tail. Sometime it could jump, and would climb up tree branches with it’s tail.
Armed with these details, the village kids told their parents about the creature. Many just laughed at the fanciful description. One of the parent’s was one of Usha’s part-time students Anjali, and was suspicious at Usha’s encouragement.
Anjali followed Usha on her morning walk through the forest, and saw where she dipped off the road and into the trees. Anjali quickly followed her into the brush, and into a hidden shelter in the hill.
“Have I been found out?” Usha was sitting on dry leaves, where none but Anjali could see her, having already stripped off her Kurti. Usha’s breasts were not what drew her eye, but the bulge of Usha’s Ardheka. She had seen it before, a huge ball of organs pulled to Usha’s pelvic floor, nestled so tightly that it bounced with Usha’s every heartbeat. Above the ball she could see Usha’s spine and the edge of her ribcage clearly defined. The ball didn’t seem nearly as large as it had been years ago, but did that matter?
“I knew it. I knew it. You are still practicing.”
“Ah, so my students merely speculate,” Usha easily rolled the ball up her spine, until it disappeared behind her ribs, leaving only the skeletal outline of her spine in Uddiyana. “Then you can guess what I’ve been working on.” The ball rolled downward. to rest on her pelvis again – still strangely free of her navel.
“If you show me, I will tell no one.”
“Hmm,” Usha considered, “I’ve had something I’ve wanted to try, but need an extra pair of legs to do so. Say yes now.”
“I am your student, I will do as you say.”
Usha nodded. “Then, first, let your skin breathe.”
Anjali slipped out of her clothes as Usha removed the last of hers.
“First, examine my Vakshah Shunyata – my ribcage void.” Usha pulled into a tight Chakrasana while maintaining Ardheka. Anjali could not help but feel the heartbeat in the ball first, but then turned her attention to the hollow beside it. It was, in fact, enormous, stretched skin lining the back of the ribs and spine going deeper than the outside would indicate. Anjali ran her hands around it’s circumference. feeling the tepid pump of blood between skin and bone.
Usha stood at Anjali withdrew. “First, I wish to make a Kinnara. Do you know of it?” Usha described a creature with four legs as a horse, and two arms as a man. Anjali then slipped into the void as Usha lent forward. Usha’s Ardheka was at her butt, and her ribcage lightly pressed into Anjali’s waist. she tried walking forward aimlessly, and would lean and tug her toward a safe direction. eventually the air grew a little stale, and Usha released her.
“You could almost fit another person in there,” Anjali wondered, as Usha rolled her belly to flush the stale air out.
“Oh, that would be my third trick. or more, ‘two halves a person”. Usha held up Anjali’s phone; she had taken pictures. and video of their strange combined beast walking forest paths.
“But first I must show you the other half,” Usha lay down on a grassy patch, “A boy though I was the victim of a tiger when I practiced this too close to the road.” She folded her self forwards with bent knees, catching her feet on the edge of her ribcage, bushing them deeper as she straightened her legs. Hidden form the eye, she bent her knees again, curling her spine forward, feeding her Ardheka and then pelvis into the void that mysteriously held more than could be pulled from it. She curled her spine further, until the point she was less than half a woman. Usha sat up on the edge of her ribcage as Anjali examined her feat, the lifted herself in a handstand, turning the entrance to the void towards Anjali to show the twisted limbs inside. She then showed how she could bull the edges of her ribs together, denying all but Usha access.
Anjali asked to hold her, and Usha allowed it – Anjali was surprised at Usha’s weight, but then considered – If her yogi had gotten lighter, that would be a bit too close to magic.
“Now, I think you can guess the third trick.”
Anjali nodded, and Usha relaxed the edge of her ribcage. Putting her on was more difficult than a blouse, as she had to help twist Usha’s limbs to a position to accommodate the second half of a person. Eventually, the she arranged Usha’s legs in an inverted sit, Usha’s choot to the back of her neck, and legs tucked under her own chin, lowering Usha into place.
Anjali found in the dimness of light filtered through forest and skin that Usha was guiding her like a joystick; forward, and turn, and bend over. she felt something against her waist, and then a command to bend far forwards, Usha’s ribcage tightly gripping the edge of her own. Then far backward, and Usha slipped off, Laughing as Anjali blinked in the bright light, finding her waist wrapped in a saree. Usha held up the phone with more pictures; a strangely taller woman than Usha in the same saree, and her head poking through her legs in a frontbend, and a graceful bridge.
“Is this all?” asked Anjali. Now partially clothed, she was suddenly worried about being seen.
“For your help, yes. You may dress if you wish.” Usha hid away the saree as Anjali pulled back on her clothes.
“I worked on this in secret during my pledge to only use Nabhimamsa for food and drink – it may look like more effort than it actually is.”
Usha stretched her neck, winding it in wide circles, allowing her head to relax and flop against her back. After a few rounds, with her neck arched back, she managed to pull her shoulders upwards and pop her head into her chest.
Anjali stifled a scream. Usha held a shushing finger up to the hole where her neck had been and waved her close. Anjali peered in, and saw Usha’s eye staring at her through a fleshy tunnel. “Boo!”
“You can talk, like that?”
“A little. But it’s even harder after this.” She moved Anjali back to arms’ length, then made a show of feeding her arms into the neck hole, her shoulders collapsing, only some unshaven armpit hair left at the edge of her neck hole.
“Are you stuck like that? If you gout a good hug, would you pop back out?” Anjali steps closer, but Usha steps back – just how she knew, Anjali had no clear idea – but she could guess that Usha’s hearing was very good.
Usha sat on the ground in a practiced manner, and Anjali followed in suit. She crossed he legs into lotus as instructed. And Anjali got the point – this was just a time to observe.
To Anjali, Usha looked like like what she imagined most naked women would look like – it was hard to tell, if her instructor was relaxed or strained – it could have just been a photo cut off at the clavicles – though even they were at an odd angle given the current pose. Usha’s belly was more or less normal – no, there was no navel. Still further no. The wrinkles and crevices of muscles under the skin, even the outlines of bones, seemed to fade as she watched. The was still clearly skin, and belly, and breasts, but as Usha sat in silence the detail seemed to melt away. Like a wax figure under too hot a lamp.
Usha shifted, and Anjali jumped a little. Her teacher slowly demonstrated several asana sans arms, all of at looking a little too perfect to be human. Her transitions between splits were fluid as clock hands, no part of her leg leaving the ground during their sweep – barely disturbing the leaves beneath. Bending her knees, her Vamadevasana was effortless, feet catching each other mid air in various configurations.
Usha lay her belly between her legs to perform Supta Kurmasana – with no neck to cross her ankles behind, she ran her feet down her spine, opting to cross them in lotus behind her back. She willed herself to roll backward, exposing a tightly nestled arse, and loosened the knot of legs, leaving her feet hooked behind her back.
She paused. Anjali remembered to breathe. There was no way her teacher expected her to repeat this.
Unhooking her feet, Usha rose to standing, and bent backwards. He back folded as tight as paper, her ribs pumped up and down rhythmically, forcing the tight bend as far up and down her back as her spine would allow. At it’s lowest, Usha’s missing head would have grazed the ground. At it’s highest, it looked almost as if Usha could feed her spin into her neck hole.
Usha stood, and gave a sort of bow – her shoulders started to re-appear, her arms flowed into view, and suddenly her head popped back into place.
Anjali gave an intentionally quiet round of applause.
“Does this leave you with any questions?”
“Questions..? I don’t think I process that in a week. I don’t think…” Anjali was forced to let the words hang. There was something…
“You should at least ask about the children’s creature.”
“Should I?”
“That’s what I was followed out here for, wasn’t it? You should.” Usha tilted her neck, “I hope you would.”
Anjali was still trying to process what she had just seen.
Usha grew a little impatient. She raised herself up in a tight Chakrasana again – this time a proper one, bent backwards, supported with hands and feet – and commenced with a slow roll of her belly between Uddiyana and Ardheka.
“Ah… have you not done your spine tie today at all?”
“I have not,” Usha smiled to herself, “The spine tie has it’s purpose, but it is limited by just keeping it below the ribcage. It is still part of… the process.”
“Then show me.”
Usha stood up. “Then, Mriga-Mukhasana, Ardheka Bandha, The Greater Loop of Spines, Submission to the Void.” She gave a little bow.
First she sunk to her knees, and bent backwards. Grabbing her thighs, she positioned her head in between them. Her stretched belly rolled like a wave, compacting her abdomen into a ball and exposing her spine. He head retreated in between her thighs, and appeared between her ribs and Ardheka. Looping around, tying a knot.
Anjali gasped. Usha paused, letting her have a moment to walk around and examine the feat from different angles.
Usha then retracted her head again into her neck, taking her bony midsection with it. Anjali could not quire how her pelvis slipped in after, and then the length of her legs.
Anjali bent over the form… an abdomen bent backwards, and tucked in at the neck. “I can move you, right?” Usha seemed to rock back and forth in confirmation.
She flipped the mass over, and found it as heavy as Usha had ever been. Her spine curled almost seamlessly into a loop, the tension throughout her skin immediately obvious, as she twitched, presumably to arrange her adopted insides further.
“My girl said there was a tail..” Anjali gasped as the package flipped itself over. The stretched abdomen had finally revealed the famous navel, which pushed further and further out, ballooning with shallow breaths then contracting, to take the appearance of an elephant’s trunk. It’s position adjacent to the neck hole rendered it less of a tail than a nose it it’s mouth. This “trunk waved her over, and Anjali could not help but stroke it. It pumped with the fervor of a heart beat. It gripped and tugged on Anjali’s hand rightly, and she attempted to pull it upwards – she jerked it for a but a second, before it landed on the ground again, uninjured.
No. Usha. It was so tempting to think of this form as an it, but mind-mindbogglingly, it was Usha.
And Usha bumped heavily against Anjali’s leg, not realizing her own weight, the student was almost knocked over. She then quickly rolls away, pushed by that trunk, hiding among the forest like a timid animal. Anjali gives chase, laughing like a child at the absurdity, ducking under branches and barging through the brush like she was a child again.
She caught Usha flinging herself up a tree – not slow and methodically like a snake, but flinging herself end over end, barely catching another branch. Trowing herself again, she tumbled, and Anjali reached out to catch her – pivoting above the ground, she got Usha’s full weight in the chest, knocking the wind out of her. The nott too little trunk checked for a pulse, and the neck hole stared deep into Anjali’s eye.
It was time to come out. Usha slid out of the little hole, unwrapping her body in many ways, until she lay next to Anjali, hugging her, comforting her while they were both hidden in the brush. Eventually, Usha led her dazed student back to the hiding place, where she got dressed in her own Skirt and Kurti – and walked with her the short trip home, where they sat and had tea. Usha’s cooking was not good, but her student needed something to eat for energy.
An hour later Anjali’s little girl came home, supplied that the yoga lady was there and not instructing another class.
Usha asked the girl if there were any new sightings – and she answered truthfully that the had not been.
Anjali told the girl that she had gone to investigate, staring at Mina for a reaction. Her teacher just continued to nurse her tea.
“Did you see it?” the little girl asked excitedly.
“I chased it. But I was almost swallowed by a tiger too, so you better stay on the road going to school.”
Usha smiled.
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