GLASS SOUP by Jonathan Carroll (funny books to read .txt) 📕

in which to be taking a stroll. Other than row after row of dreary apartment buildings and the occasional run-down restaurant or gasthaus, there was nothing much to see. Ettrich wondered where they were heading.

Halfway down the next block he slowed when he saw something. When they reached the place he motioned for her to stop. They stood in front of a brightly lit store window. Almost every other display window they’d passed was either dark or too dimly lit to see much. It was late—at that hour who was around to buy what they were selling?

In contrast, this window glowed like Vienna needed what it had to offer day and night. That physical brightness was what had first caught his attention.

“Check out the stuff in this window. What the hell do they sell here?” Staring at the display, he was spellbound. Ettrich had a job in advertising. Most of his days were spent trying to convince people to buy products they either didn’t know about or need. As a result, he loved to see how the rest of the world attempted to sell its products too.

In this store window ten Old Spice cologne bottles were lined up like oddly shaped bowling pins. Next to them were six thin men’s ties in campy but now very “in” retro colors and geometric patterns. Ties from another era perfectly preserved. It was plain that they were originals. They all looked freshly cleaned and ironed; maybe they had never even been used. Dead stock. Ettrich remembered that term from the time as a boy he had worked in a stationery store. Products that were new but had never sold, so they were stored for a future time when they’d be brought out again and hopefully find a buyer.

Standing open behind the ties was a 33⅓ record album set of the recorded speeches of General Douglas MacArthur. Near that lying open was a large illustrated book about the sculptor William Edmondson. Beneath the book were eight square bars of soap with the words White Floating etched across their middles. A foot away was an old green crocodile purse in perfect condition. Vincent could tell at a glance that it was old by the striking shape—it was the sort of bag Lauren Bacall carried tucked up under her arm in a 1940s movie.

Scattered haphazardly between the objects in the window were black-and-white photographs from that era. Bending down for a better look, Ettrich saw that many of them featured one man. In about half of the photos he was dressed in a military uniform, but the outfit was unfamiliar. What army did it belong to?

In one of these pictures, the man sat among three nurses wearing high complicated hairdos. Another was taken in a bar, the man and another woman sitting close to each other on chrome stools, their glasses touching in a toast. In a third snapshot he was standing with this same woman, his arm around her, next to a small car, huge and beautiful snow-covered mountains looming in the background behind them.

“Vincent.”

Ettrich could barely tear himself away from the window and trying to make sense of all this stuff, even when it was Isabelle Neukor calling. There was something about the things in the window and the way they had been arranged. Was it the strangeness of them placed together? Or the obvious care and thought that had gone into the display? The whole tableau reminded him of a very personal photo album, or a shelf in someone’s living room where the most cherished, important keepsakes and talismans were kept.

“Look up.”

“What?”

She lifted her arm and pointed to something high up. “Look there. Look over the door.”

Not understanding why she wanted that, Ettrich nonetheless did what she said. Looking up, he saw a large black-and-white sign over the doorway that said only “PETRAS URBSYS.”

He couldn’t believe it. “Here? This is the place you were bringing me, Isabelle?”

“Yup. You can go back to looking in the window. It’s great, isn’t it? He changes it every week.”

“He’s selling his life.” Isabelle licked her spoon.

Ettrich stared intently into his coffee cup as he listened to her speak. Otherwise if he looked at Isabelle he’d surely lose track of his thoughts. “Say again?”

They sat in the back of the smoky café Alt Wien, one of the few places in town that stays open very late. They’d gone there after Vincent had had his fill of staring in the window at Petras Urbsys.

Isabelle tapped the back of his hand with the spoon. “That’s what he has in the store: everything from his life. Or a lot of it; the things that mattered enough to him to keep. And now he’s selling all of it.”

“How do you sell your life? And why would you?”

“Because he’s an old man who wants to see his treasures go to good homes before he dies. It’s not as crazy as it sounds. Most of what’s for sale in his store are records and CDs. Petras is crazy for music—all kinds. I think he has something like five thousand records.”

“Yes, but Isabelle, there were also old bars of soap in that window! Don’t tell me he’s selling the soap he’s collected over the years too.”

“Could be. It wouldn’t surprise me. But think about it for a minute. You’re old and lonely. No one cares about you anymore and no one wants to listen to you. Your stories, your complaints, whatever hopes and dreams you have left: no-one-cares. It’s always like that with old people.

“But you’ve got some money saved, too much time on your hands, and a million memories you want to share. Can you think of anything better than to open a store and sell everything that matters to you to customers who will enjoy it as much as you did? And Petras wants to talk to you before he sells you anything. Because if he doesn’t like the person, no sale. I’ve seen him refuse more than once.

“He said that most