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

Until then his life had been golden. He had a successful business. His wife was beautiful and nice. He always drove through yellow lights turning to red. And why not? He was who he was. Life had always stepped back and let him go first.

To his horror and incredulous relief, the body on the bush moved. Someone choked out, “He’s alive!” A woman gasped and blurted so quickly that her three words became one “ohmyGod!” Then the body moved again—an arm raised, lowered, and rose again.

Seeing this slow-motion horror that he had caused, the driver once again had the wildly strong urge to run away. Leave his life, his wife, the car, leave everything and flee as fast as he could to anywhere. He forgot that a wallet containing all of his identification papers lay on the passenger’s seat alongside his cell phone which contained an address book fifty-four numbers long in its memory. He forgot that there were license plates on the car that could trace him on a computer in two seconds. He forgot everything that minutes ago had comprised his life. All that filled his frightened head now was Run—save yourself.

Because even if the injured man survived, what followed would go on for years and ruin everything: the hospital, the recovery, the huge insurance claims, the lawsuits, the bad publicity, and yes, the money. Inside the now-screaming world of his dread he couldn’t help thinking about the money too.

That’s what went through his mind while standing there watching this body move so slowly, like a lobster or a crab that’s been out of water too long. It was all his fault, everything. Good God, he’d be sued for millions. He had millions but would lose them now because—

The body slowly turned. It turned over completely so he could now see the victim’s face for the first time. Someone said again, “He’s alive!” as if what they were seeing needed spoken verification again. But would the victim remain alive? How bad were his injuries?

The driver had to find out. He could not stand not knowing anymore. With his last drop of courage, he walked over to the man lying on his back now, staring up at the sky. Remarkably, there was no blood. How could that be? How could a person be hit square on by a very large car and knocked that far back without bleeding somewhere?

The victim slowly rolled his eyes away from the sky, over to the driver, and said, “I want your car.”

The driver jerked back in surprise. John Flannery had not only spoken clearly and directly to him, but in Flemish. How could he know that the driver was Belgian and Flemish was his mother tongue?

None of the other onlookers spoke that gluey, arcane language. They naturally thought the wounded man was out of his head with pain and speaking gibberish.

“Listen to me because I will only say this once. In a minute I’m going to speak German so everyone here will understand. I’m going to ask you to put me in your car and take me to the hospital. This has to be done fast because the police will be here soon and then everything gets official. If they come that’s the worst thing that could happen to you.”

The driver couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He couldn’t believe any of this was happening to him. But it was and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

“All right. Will you do it.” Flannery said these things as statements, not the questions that they were. The driver mumbled yes.

When Flannery spoke again it was much louder and in perfect German. “I hurt. I hurt. I want to go to the hospital now. Right now. Right now.”

He kept saying that over and over like a keening lament. The bystanders told him to wait—surely an ambulance would come soon. Flannery’s only mistake was standing up a little too quickly for someone who was supposed to be so badly injured. But he knew that the police were only eight minutes away. This had to be done right now. Staggering over to the Porsche, he opened the door and shouted, “Take me now. Take me to the hospital! I can’t wait. I hurt! I hurt!”

The driver watched this happen along with the others. He was a bystander too until someone said to him, “Go, go ahead. We’ll tell the police when they come. You go ahead. Take him to the hospital. We’ll tell the police.”

Bewildered and unsure, the driver got back into his car and put it in gear. Flannery was slumped against the passenger door looking waxy, in pain and very ill. When they had pulled away from the crowd, he spoke again in Flemish.

“I’ll tell you where to go. When we get there give me all of the papers you have on the car, and then leave. Never report that it was stolen. Never make an insurance claim, and continue to pay the insurance on it for the next two years. After that you can stop. Do you understand? This is your lucky day if you’re smart about it and do exactly what I told you.”

“But how—”

“Shut up. Don’t ask questions. If I want the ownership papers later, I’ll contact you. But I probably won’t need them. The car will never be used for anything bad so you don’t have to worry about that. Give me the keys and the papers, get out when I tell you to, and disappear.

“Or you can take me to the hospital now. Then the police and everyone else will get involved and you’ll lose everything. That’s a guarantee. But if you give me the car and walk away clean, nothing else happens to you—all of it ends this minute. It’s your choice. Can you trust me to keep my word? Yes.”

The driver was trying to think fast, come up with all of the possible angles here, thinking