II.

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Deluded by the heart-breaking conclusion that he would be unable to finish his spiritual quest in this lifetime, he began to have dark thoughts. Whether it was to alleviate some of his sorrow or to wallow in it, he would take long hikes in the surrounding picturesque mountains, some days not coming home until dark.

 

One day, while hiking, he paused atop a high mountain truss bridge, gazing down at the jagged cliffs below. A haunting question gripped him—would anyone even notice or care if he jumped?

 

As he stood there, lost in the weight of his despair, his gaze caught on a small bird’s nest tucked between the bridge’s beams. Inside, a single robin’s egg rested, fragile and still. Then, before his eyes, the impossible happened—the egg began to crack. A tiny, naked chick emerged, trembling and new to the world. But in mere seconds, the impossible become something even more surreal. The chick, defying nature’s timeline, grew rapidly into a fledgling, its downy features filling in as if time itself had collapse.

 

David watched, stunned, as the young bird flapped its wings, struggling at first, but then, with a determined push, took flight. It soared to the highest point of the bridge, where another robin waited. And then, in a display of nature accelerated beyond all reason, the two birds immediately began to mate.

 

Moments later, their brief encounter ended, and the now-pregnant robin returned to the very nest it had hatched from—only to lay an egg in the exact spot where it had been born just moments before.

 

David could only stare, his mind reeling. This can’t have just happened!

 

The entire spectacle seemed to have taken its toll on the now fully matured robin. With a final, unsteady flutter, it abandoned the nest once more—only to plummet a few feet away, collapsing onto the bridge’s walkway, lifeless as stone.

 

David barely had time to process what had happened before the bird’s body began to wither before his eyes. Its feathers dulled, its flesh shriveled as if every drop of moisture had been siphoned away. In mere moments, it decayed, crumbling into dust that scattered with the wind.

 

In less than two minutes, David realized, he had witness the complete lifespan of a single robin—from birth to flight, to death and decay.

 

He was about to step forward and examine the delicate pile of dust when, out of nowhere, a woman on a bicycle rode straight through it. The fine remains scattered into the wind, vanishing before his eyes. She braked abruptly, sensing something amiss, but remained unaware of what had just disappeared beneath her wheels.

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“Hey, did you see that robin’s egg?” she asked David with a smile.

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“Um, yeah,” said David.

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“Just one of nature’s little miracles, huh?” she added with gleaming eyes.

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“Right,” replied David. “I couldn’t agree more.” He was still astounded by what he had just witnessed.

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“Oh, look, it’s hatching! Can you believe it?”

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“I’m not sure,” said David, still dumbfounded.

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“Not sure of what?” she asked. “Come over and take a look, silly!”

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It was as if David were watching it all over again.

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“Did you know they can raise up to three broods in one breeding season, and that the eggs take only fourteen days to hatch?”

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“I didn’t know that,” answered David with some wonderment.

 

“That’s amazing.”

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He decided to let himself enjoy a little friendly conversation for a change.

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“I’m David, by the way.”

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Taijasa was young, slender, and striking, with long golden dreadlocks that cascaded over her shoulders. A bold tattoo of Buddha, seated serenely on swirling clouds, adorned one arm, its intricate design blending seamlessly with her aura of calm. She wore a flowing linen skirt and a simple tank top, her look accented by dangling jewelry that caught the sunlight as she moved. There was an effortless radiance about her—an infectious love for nature and a warmth that made the world around her feel a little lighter.

 

What began as a casual conversation about a robin’s egg soon became something more—a welcome distraction that blossomed into a romantic relationship. David found himself no longer consumed by thoughts of Swami Mayananda or his pursuit of enlightenment. Taijasa’s ethereal beauty and magnetic presence had pulled him into a different kind of awakening.

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She was everything he had ever longed for—beautiful, sensitive, and deeply spiritual, yet wrapped in just enough mystery to keep him captivated. She reminded him of the girls who sat in the front row at the yoga studio he used to frequent—the ones he had admired from afar but never had the nerve to approach.

 

But now, here she was, right beside him. To David, Taijasa wasn’t just a chance encounter—she was a dream come true.

 

By their third meeting, the spark between them had ignited into something undeniable. Taijasa, having learned that David’s favorite cuisine was Thai, invited him over for an extravagant homemade dinner. The table was adorned with steaming plates of pad thai, fragrant tom yum goong, and a perfectly arranged serving of khao niaow ma muang for dessert.

 

He had barely taken a bite of the mango sticky rice when Taijasa reached for his hand, her touch both electric and deliberate. Without a word, she switched off the lights and led him through the dimly lit space to her candlelit bedroom. Soft Indian flute music drifted through the air, mingling with the flickering glow of candles. Tibetan tapestries adorned the walls, their auspicious symbols casting faint, dancing shadows. The atmosphere was intoxicating, a perfect blend of mysticism and seduction.

 

David, sensing that dinner had officially ended, turned his attention fully to her. With a slow, reverent touch, he undid the few buttons on her summer print dress. As the fabric slipped effortlessly from her shoulders, revealing the radiant contours of her body, he found himself breathless. She stood before him, illuminated by candlelight—an ethereal vision, both untouchable and impossibly close.

 

Their bodies drew closer, her silky, tattooed arms wrapping around his thick neck as she pulled him into her warmth. But just as desire threatened to overtake him, something strange began to happen.

 

David suddenly became hyper-aware of his own body in a way he had never experienced before. His heartbeat thundered in his ears, each pulse reverberating through his chest like a drum. He could feel his lungs expanding and contracting, each breath stretching his ribcage with an almost mechanical precision. Then came something even more unsettling—the sensation of his dinner digesting. He could hear it, feel it, the slow churn of food moving through his intestines, the gurgling, the shifting, the processing of every bite.

 

At first, he brushed it off as nerves—after all, he was about to spend the night with the girl of his dreams. But the sensations didn’t fade. Instead, they intensified. The sounds grew louder, more distinct, as if his body had become an amplifier for every internal function. His awareness, once focused on Taijasa, now turned inward, dragged deep into the strange symphony of his own anatomy.

 

“I’m so sorry,” he told Taijasa, trying not to break the mood. “You make me lose my breath and my heart go pitter-patter. Even my stomach seems to have an opinion.”

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“I don’t hear anything,” said Taijasa softly in his ear, now doing a kind of sensual dance before him.

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But the sound from his bowels became even louder, and he realized that he could now hear Taijasa’s as well. The rumbling and gurgling were in concert. Not only that, but as Taijasa was dancing, he could hear the creak and pop of her joints move like the groaning timbers of a ship rocking in the wind. David’s romantic evening, he thought, had suddenly turned into a strange, intensifying, beating, gurgling, tooting, creaking biological cacophony!

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“Is everything alright?” she asked. “I hope I’m not making you uncomfortable.”   

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“Everything is fine,” David replied. “My sense of hearing just seems to be very acute.”

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But it wasn’t just his hearing; all of David’s senses were now dialed up to ten. Not only could he hear their hearts beating, their lungs breathing, their food digesting, and their joints rubbing, he could also smell the leftover food in their mouths, the soap residue and perspiration on their skin and hair, and the slight flatulence as a result of the evening’s meal. David would later think back on the experience as being very “organic.”

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Next, Taijasa undressed David with a teasing slowness, her fingers gliding over his skin as she lured him toward the bed. Step by step, she guided him backward until the mattress caught him, and he landed on his back. With deliberate grace, she climbed on top of him, one limb at a time, her golden dreadlocks cascading down and brushing against his bare chest.

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David was trying to enjoy the moment despite all the sounds and peculiar smells, when he looked straight up, and to his surprise—mirrors!

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The ceiling was covered in them.

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For a moment, he blinked, disoriented by the surreal sight of their entwined forms reflected from above. He hadn’t expected this. It felt a little too kinky for his taste, but at this point, resistance seemed pointless. He took a deep breath, swallowed his hesitation, and decided to go with it.

​

As David watched their reflection in the ceiling mirrors, his breath caught in his throat. What should have been an intimate, sensual moment looked instead like something out of a nightmare—two skeletons, stripped of flesh, gyrating in rhythmic motion. Their bones clattered and shifted, moving in perfect sync, a mesmerizing yet unsettling spectacle.

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The sight was both fascinating and deeply eerie, as if he were peering beyond the veil of reality, glimpsing some hidden truth about existence. A cold shiver ran down his spine. To ground himself, he shut his eyes, hoping to drown out the bizarre imagery.

But that only made things worse.

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With his vision removed, his other senses sharpened. The already overwhelming sounds of their bodies—joints creaking, fluids gurgling, breath huffing—intensified. And then came the smells. Pungent, raw, unfiltered—odors from every bodily orifice filled his awareness, layering upon one another in a way that felt inescapable.

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David was on the verge of pulling away, of stopping whatever this was, when he realized something chilling.

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Things were about to get even stranger.

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There’s a frog in Costa Rica called the glass frog, whose skin is so transparent that you can see its entire internal viscera, including its heart, liver, and gastrointestinal tract.

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When David opened his eyes again, he wished he hadn’t.

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Taijasa was no longer just naked—she had become exposed in a way that defied all logic. Like the glass frog, her skin had turned translucent, revealing the intricate machinery of her body beneath. He could see everything—her muscles contracting as she moved, her tendons pulling like taut cables, the rhythmic expansion and contraction of her lungs. Her heart thudded violently in her chest, pumping thick streams of blood through branching veins.

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And then his gaze dropped lower.

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Her breasts, once soft and inviting, were now revealed as mere sacks of fatty tissue, swaying in delicate synchronization with her movements. More disturbingly, he could see the lump of their shared dinner being pushed through her digestive tract, churning through her stomach and snaking its way through her intestines.

His horror deepened as he met her gaze.

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Her once-lovely face had become an anatomical diagram come to life—her cheeks stripped away to reveal an intricate web of narrow muscle bands and sinew. Her eyes, once shimmering pools of warmth, were now cold, mechanical orbs rolling in their sockets. And her jaw, lined with wet, gnashing teeth, opened and closed in slow, mechanical precision, grinding in pleasure as waves of dopamine coursed through her system.

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David felt his breath catch in his throat. This wasn’t the woman he had fallen for—this was something else. Something raw. Something real. He was no longer looking at Taijasa the way a man looks at his lover. He was seeing her for what she truly was: a biological machine—a grotesque entanglement of parts, fluids, and processes, barely held together by the fragile illusion of skin.

​

David could no longer bear the horrifying reality unfolding before him. The woman he had once desired had transformed into something unrecognizable—an exposed, pulsing mass of biological mechanics, stripped of all illusion. Any trace of passion or attraction had curdled into raw, visceral disgust.

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With a surge of revulsion, he shoved the anatomical Taijasa off him, scrambling out of bed as if escaping a nightmare. His hands fumbled to pull on his clothes, his breath ragged, his mind reeling.

Taijasa sat up, confusion etched across her still-translucent face. She reached for him, worry flickering in her eerily exposed eyes. “David, what’s wrong?” she asked, her voice laced with genuine concern.

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But he couldn’t answer. He wouldn’t.

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Without a word, he brushed past her, refusing to meet her gaze, and rushed out the door, leaving behind the scent of candle wax, incense, and something far more primal—the unbearable truth of what lay beneath human beauty.

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Something was happening to him, David thought, and he had no way to explain it in a way that would make sense to her. Things were suddenly exhibiting themselves to him in peculiar ways that he couldn’t comprehend. It was as if he were being shown a side to life he had never noticed before. Everywhere he went, he was now a witness to the magnified changing nature and impermanence of life.

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Continue to Part III

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