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

Now he really didn’t know what to say. The bear appeared to be waiting for an answer but what could Haden say that wouldn’t spell his doom?

“Uh—”

“Jesus, Simon, you’re breaking my heart here. You don’t remember anything?”

He looked at the bear and then straining, looked closer. He saw nothing but what was there. Finally when it reached the point where most bears would either have roared or eaten Haden, this one began to whistle. “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head.” It was a pretty good whistler too. Halfway through the song it stopped and looked at the man.

Thoroughly confused now but also somewhat encouraged because he hadn’t been sent to Hell yet, Simon Haden looked back at the beast, trying with all of his mental might to use every brain cell to—

“Oh-my-God, BOB!”

The bear grinned now and slapped its knees. “Finally! Now get over here and give your old pal a hug.”

It didn’t need to say that because Haden was already bounding across the room to do exactly that. Embracing the enormous white animal which by then had stood up and come around the desk, Haden hugged it as tightly as he could. Tears were in his eyes. While being hugged, Bob started whistling the song again which only made Simon hug tighter.

Bob the polar bear was the first and probably greatest gift Simon Haden ever received. He was three years old when it was given to him. Both of his parents were odd people. Little more needs to be said about them other than neither believed a child under three years old understood or appreciated Christmas. Consequently there was no real point in celebrating the holiday in the Haden home before then.

Because his parents were also tightfisted crabby skinflint shitheads, they purchased for their little son’s first Christmas: 1. a middle-sized tree that they left undecorated except for strung popcorn (homemade) because to them, ornaments were a needless frill, 2. a large stuffed animal that for some peculiar reason was being sold for very little at the gasoline station they frequented.

One December afternoon Mr. Haden came home with a fuzzy white polar bear under his arm. Around the animal’s neck was a cardboard collar with BOB written on it in thick black letters. Thin Mrs. Haden stood in the doorway blocking the way until her husband had satisfactorily explained what he was carrying. He said it was a stuffed animal, a polar bear, which he thought was an ideal Christmas present for little Simon. Plus he had bought it for a very good price.

“How much?” Mrs. Haden asked as she strangled the hand towel she was holding.

“Eleven dollars down at the Shell station.”

She didn’t know if she was more impressed by the price, or the fact her normally unobservant husband had found their son’s Christmas present at a gasoline station.

It was lub at first site. The little boy walked into the living room Christmas morning and saw the tree first but that made no impression on him. A tree inside the house, strung with popcorn: Who cares? Then he saw the white bear sitting on the chair next to the tree. Simon waddled over to that chair and simply stood there, captivated by this white apparition, this wonderful creature out of the blue sitting there in his house. It seemed as if it had been waiting all along for the boy.

“Hello.”

The bear didn’t answer but that was okay. Simon didn’t know what to expect from the animal but so long as it stayed where it was and didn’t leave, the child was content with its silence.

“I lub you.”

Even flint-hearted Mrs. Haden melted on hearing her son say that to his new toy. Standing next to her husband, she took his hand in hers and squeezed it. A few minutes later while Simon was still getting acquainted with Bob, Mr. Haden put on a record. The room filled with B.J. Thomas singing the Hadens’ favorite song, “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head.”

For the next nine years, that was the theme song of Simon and Bob the Bear. Sometimes when he was dreamy or scared or just happy, the boy would wrap his arms around the bear and sing the song to his most steadfast friend. He told Bob his secrets, his fears, his hatreds, and what he considered most important in the small world of Simon Haden. He told the stuffed animal about his friend Clifford Snatzke, a new very pretty girl in third grade, and tearily about being beaten up again and again in fifth grade by the class bully. Even when he was much too old to own a stuffed animal he kept Bob, although he relegated it now to a corner, where it lived sort of incommunicado until it literally came apart at its cheap seams. Over those years the bear served as friend, confidante, confessor, talisman, imagined protector, and finally as pillow. Always uncomplaining, always there to do whatever he could to make Simon Haden feel that there was at least one being in his world who could be counted on for everything.

A long time later in another world, Bob the Bear gently disengaged itself from Haden’s embrace and stepped back to look at its old roommate.

Haden didn’t resist. Wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, he let himself be examined from head to toe by the bear. While this happened, something dawned on him.

“Bob? They said I was coming here to see God.” He quickly looked around to make sure God wasn’t in the room with them.

“Mmh,” Bob said, not yet having finished its examination. Needless to say, that response wasn’t much help.

“But what—”

The bear held up a paw for Haden to be quiet while he was being appraised. When it was finished, the animal nodded to itself as if it had now correlated the data it needed on this man.

“I was your god, Simon. I was the only god you ever really believed in your whole life. Think