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

only angry at himself for having unwittingly done something wrong. He was usually so good at his job. It had often commended him.

When the real Leni figured she had waited a long enough time, she opened the bathroom door as quietly as she could, thrilled to have pulled off her surprise. She’d heard John come in and call her name. Like a little girl, she had put both hands tightly over her mouth and tittered.

She wore the sheer white cotton robe that she’d just bought and nothing else beneath it. John had often joked about her one day greeting him at the door wearing a drink and nothing else. Well, today his fantasy was going to come true. It had taken longer to buy the robe than she had planned because the saleswoman at the Hanro store kept showing her one more beautiful, sexy piece after the other and it had been so hard to decide. White finally won over black, but it was an erotic white, almost entirely transparent. If they’d had to give that color a name they should have called it “who are you kidding white.” Leni was also a few days away from having her period, so her breasts were heavy and full which looked great beneath the tease of white in the robe.

She was at first disappointed when she arrived at his apartment and discovered John wasn’t there. But then she realized it was good because it would give her time to prepare. If Flannery came in while she was getting ready then he would just have to wait. It would be worth it. Today Leni felt like eating him with a spoon.

She went into his bathroom and took off her clothes. Naked, she looked in the mirror and pretended to give herself a wolf whistle. Next, she ran her fingers over his colognes on the shelf above the sink and wondered if she should put one of them on. But John often said that he loved the smell of her body and that it turned him on. He asked her not to use deodorant or bathe right before coming to meet him. I want to smell you, not Éstée Lauder. When he had first said that it made her uncomfortable and embarrassed, but later the thought was incredibly alluring. No man had ever said anything like that to her. It made her feel secretly wicked, as well as much more sensual and feminine. Sometimes when they were in bed he would run his tongue all the way up her hip and side to her armpit. There he would stop and she could feel him, hear him, breathing her in.

Now standing in the doorway to the kitchen, ready to give him everything, Leni finally saw John. Back to her, his face was down on the floor as he appeared to be worshiping… her. An identical Leni Salomon was sitting across the room at the table, dressed in exactly the same clothes as she had worn earlier.

Now that it was capable of thought, Chaos fancied itself witty and very amusing. Usually it visited Flannery in its own skin. But this time it decided to do something different and funny. Flannery was fucking this crippled woman? Well then, today the cripple would fuck him.

So it sought out Leni and found her in the lingerie shop. It watched her confusion as she tried to decide which robe to buy. With that impression of her fresh in mind, it went to Flannery’s apartment and re-created the Leni Salomon it had just witnessed. On entering the kitchen, John saw Chaos living in the confused body of his lover. Without hesitating he fell to his knees and bowed to his creator.

But it had made a mistake. Chaos recognized only itself in people. It dismissed all other human qualities as either useless or flaws. Chaos understood the chaos of love, but not the bond. The anarchy of art but not the harmony or communication it creates. It knew that sometimes it was color blind to certain human qualities but it didn’t care. It could not see them because they were off the scale of its perception. Like high whistles only dogs can hear. That’s why from time to time it made someone like John Flannery and sent him into the world awhile. There were certain errands, certain tasks that needed to be done by a real live human being. “People things” that could only be accomplished by people.

Here’s the irony—Leni was brilliant in any crisis. Flora frequently joked that she wanted her best friend nearby when World War Three started. Because Leni would be the calmest person around and know exactly what to do while the earth melted around them.

Looking into the kitchen and seeing John kneeling in front of an exact replica of herself, Leni thought calmly This is a joke, a trick; John arranged this scene to freak me out.

Across the room her other self spoke. This woman, this copy, wearing the same outfit she’d taken off and hung on the back of the bathroom door minutes before, now spoke to Flannery. What it said was impossible to understand. The imposter’s language was unlike anything Leni had ever heard before. The quick dissonant jangle of sounds spilling out was eerie. High and melodious, they sounded almost like a kind of birdsong. There was real music in it, but something was wrong with this music. It sounded sort of pleasant but mostly off—as if it were being played on false instruments like a paper trumpet or a violin made of cloth. John replied at length in the same language. Then there was a rapid-fire back-and-forth between the two of them. They conversed.

In the middle of it, the other woman abruptly stopped speaking and looked straight at Leni. But it did not see her because unlike their first encounter hours before, there was no chaos in Leni now. She was composed and still. She saw something bizarre happening and understood that