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

go out into the country now anywhere, the people have no new stories like these because all of the magic has been stopped. Taken away forever. There is nothing mythic or magical on the earth anymore. Only the old stories have survived but without their beating hearts. Like the ruins of a great civilization that lived a thousand years ago.

“There are no more pigs that grant one important wish, or clouds that speak forgotten languages. No more trees that sing the end of the world… no more, Isabelle. They are all gone.”

“It was real? Those stories are true?”

Petras roared, “Of course they’re true! No one could make all of those stories up—they are too deep and inspired. Do you know where most of them came from? Simple farmers and laborers, peasants mostly, country people. Do you really think those idiots had the kind of imagination to make them up? All hundreds and thousands of them? No, they didn’t create these things, they saw them. They saw them, or their fathers or grandfathers did, and what they saw became part of the family history. Of course the stories were true.”

“But then what happened? Why are they all gone?”

“Because man used them terribly and almost always for the wrong reasons. Think of the history of this century, Isabelle. Think of the way man has behaved and showed what he really is at heart: a selfish, dangerous monster that destroyed much more than he has created, and did so many more bad things than good.

“Do you really think people today can be trusted with magic and the power that comes with it? No, not at all. We cannot even be trusted to preserve ourselves. We cannot protect us from us! So that is the very good reason why they took it all away. And it is very sad because losing those things has made our world a smaller, less interesting place.”

Petras broke eye contact with her and looking down, brushed dust off the thick book. “Somewhere in here is the story about entering death through that one dream we all have. Exactly like I told you. What is not here is the knowledge of how to do that. And you will not find it anywhere now because it has been removed. Why? Because it is too dangerous. It would be like giving snakes to babies to play with.

“All of it is gone now, Isabelle. The only thing left to see of that snake is its skin which are the sweet little myths and magic stories that we read to babies before they go to sleep. The skin is still very beautiful, but it is not the snake.”

“Who did this? Who took them away?” She pointed toward the door. “Mangold? People like him?”

Petras shook his head. “He is only a messenger. But I cannot answer that question. It is something you must discover for yourself or not.”

“All right, I accept that. But can you tell me this—was it God? Did God take this magic away?”

Petras hesitated, as if deciding whether or not to say anything. “God is not one thing.”

Isabelle did not know how to react. She did not understand what he meant but knew that if she asked him to elaborate he would refuse. She did the only thing that came to mind. Putting both hands on her stomach, she asked, “Then show me this. Show me how I can find Vincent.”

“Vincent?”

Vincent saw his hand on the tombstone, but his mind was still back in Petras’s store with the old man and Isabelle. Trying to bring these two separate realities together was difficult for him. It was like staring straight ahead while slowly bringing your fingers in from the far left and right lines of vision toward the center.

“Vincent, nothing happened. It didn’t work!”

He was again in the cemetery, again standing next to Isabelle alongside Petras’s grave. He remained silent, still trying to grasp hold of where he really was and how much time had passed. She thought he was listening closely, waiting to hear what she would say next. In truth he was only stunned.

“I did exactly what Petras taught me but this time it didn’t work. Why? What does that mean, Vincent? Why didn’t it work? Why couldn’t I enter death?”

Ettrich noticed a bench nearby and led her over to it. After they’d sat down he slowly and in great detail described what had happened to him when he put his hand on Petras’s gravestone. Isabelle did not interrupt. She sat with her chin down and arms crossed tightly over her chest. He didn’t know what that body language signified but didn’t waste time trying to figure it out. More important was to tell her everything about his experience so that she could know it all and process it.

She did not appear surprised by what had happened to him. When he was finished with his account she said nothing. Several times she almost spoke but didn’t. She wasn’t clear in her mind what she wanted to say. So her only obvious reaction was to nervously wiggle her outstretched foot back and forth. Both of them ended up looking at that foot as if it might know something they didn’t.

“After you died, Vincent, Petras taught me how to go into death and bring you back. But this time I couldn’t do it. That possibility is closed to me.

“Maybe I was allowed to go there only that one time. Whatever the case is, I can’t do it now and ask Petras why these things are happening to me.” She said all this to her wiggling foot. Only when she was finished did she look at Vincent.

He did not turn to her when he spoke. “True, but at the same time, I went into your past and saw how you learned to do it. Or almost—Petras was about to tell you how when you said my name and I was brought back here.”

“What did you learn when you were dead, Vincent? That’s what