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

looking back. If you did, you would be even more disturbed because he is still staring at you, at your back now but just as attentively. It is as if he is memorizing you, writing down your license plate number for some time in the future when he will cross your path again, only then it will be on purpose.

Several weeks later, after that bizarre luncheon with her girlfriends, Leni stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and speed-dialed John’s number on her cell phone. Smiling, she closed her eyes and thought about where he might be. She imagined him in his apartment, those two small but lovely sunlit rooms in the Second District near the Augarten Park. A friend who was working in the United States for half a year had lent it to him. Flannery seemed to have so many friends. He spoke about them with great affection, and judging by the fact that he had been given his apartment rent-free, his friends liked him too. She pictured him standing in the middle of that bright living room reaching into his pocket for the blue cell phone she’d given him half as a joke, half not.

Or he would be in the park with Luba, sitting on one of those green wooden benches in the hundezone, reading the newspaper while the dog sat at his feet contentedly watching the world go by. Leni loved to go to the park with them and watch how others—both canine and human—reacted to John’s giant.

“Hello?”

Just hearing his voice instantly calmed her and closed all of her banging doors. He was exactly where she wanted to be.

“John, it’s me, Leni.”

“Hi, boss.”

He always had a different name for her when they spoke, a different moniker—boss, sweetie, pal. The list went on and on. No one had ever addressed her like that. The names made her smile because they were very much a part of his manner.

“Where are you?”

He answered immediately. “On your tongue. In your hand.”

The response was so unexpected and intimate that she almost swooned. “John, can I see you today?”

His voice changed tenor. When it came again it was concerned rather than teasing. “Of course. What’s up? Is anything wrong, Leni?”

“No, no. Yes. I don’t know. I just want to see you.” Suddenly she felt like crying. Why?

“Sure you can. Where are you? I’m in the park with Luba.”

Leni still felt like crying but at the same time broke out in a big smile. She loved hearing she had been correct about where he was. She loved being right about John. It made her feel like they were on the same page. “Where’s Luba? Are you reading the newspaper?”

“She’s by my foot watching a cocker spaniel piss on a bush, and yes, I’m reading the paper. Am I really that predictable? How depressing. What’s up, my friend? You don’t sound so good.”

“I had a really strange lunch just now and I don’t know, it just would be really, really nice to see you today, if that’s okay.”

“Yes, absolutely. Do you want to come over here or meet someplace else?”

I just want to fuck you is what she really wanted to say to him but could not. Leni had said and done things with Flannery that she never would have thought herself capable of before. But this line she simply couldn’t say. She didn’t have the courage yet. “Can we meet at your place? I’m in the First District now. I can take a taxi and be there in ten minutes.”

“Can you make it an hour or so? Let me do two errands and then I’ll meet you there. Is that okay?”

“Yes—an hour.” Shoulders sagging in relief, she pictured the keys to his apartment in the inner pocket of her purse—their special home. The owner had given John two sets when he moved in. The first day Leni visited him there, the first time they’d gone to bed, he had given her one of these sets afterward. He said, “Now if I lose my keys, you have to come over and let me in with yours.” Sometimes when she was alone or unhappy, she got out these keys and simply held them in her hand. Everything was all right now. She clapped her telephone closed and took hold of the cane leaning against her leg. She’d walk down Kartnerstrasse to clear her head and then catch a taxi over to his building. Everything was all right now.

A hundred feet away standing in the shadows of a doorway, Flannery watched Leni limp off in the opposite direction. Pressing the disconnect button on the blue phone, he dropped it back into his pocket. But as it touched bottom there it began to ring again. He was a popular boy today. He took the phone back out and answered. “Hello?”

“Where are you?”

He smirked at the demanding tone of the voice. This one didn’t ask questions—she gave orders, even when ending her sentences with a question mark.

“I’m on your tongue. I’m in your ear.”

Tsking her impatience, she snapped, “Don’t be an idiot. Where are you?”

“I’m washing the buffalo.”

The weirdness of his remark stopped even her for a moment. “You’re what?”

“I’m in Calcutta washing a water buffalo. I’ve become a Janist. This is one of our practices.”

“A what?” She ran a hand impatiently through her long red hair.

“A Janist. The religion? It’s based on the teachings of Mahavira, sixth century B.C.—”

“What the hell are you talking about?” But she was giggling now because he had gotten to her again. That was one of the things she loved about him. She could boss the world around but not this man. She pretended to hate how frustrating he could be. In truth she really liked how independent and unpredictable he was with everything, including her.

“Nothing. I am talking about absolutely nothing. I’m down at the Danube walking the dog.” He said this while watching people pass by on Vienna’s busiest walking street. The Danube was five miles away.

“Let’s meet