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

To make matters worse, Simon hadn’t said a thing to her about any of it. They’d taken an elevated train to a forlorn edge of the city that bordered this busy highway. It looked to her like the main road out to the airport. On the ride over, he wouldn’t tell her anything about where they were going or why. The reason being that he was afraid she would turn around and leave if she knew. Instead he made vacuous small talk that bored both of them right up until they got off the train and, leaving the station, walked to the edge of this road.

Zoom zoom zoom—the flow of traffic never stopped or lessened, not for a second. “Simon, I came this far with you, but I swear that if you don’t tell me right now why we’re here, I’m leaving.”

Resigned to the worst, he sighed and asked, “What was your favorite song as a kid?”

Leni almost physically recoiled at the strangeness of the question. “What?”

He raised his voice. “I’m answering your question. What song did you, Isabelle, and Flora play all the time when you were girls, especially when you were together?”

Exasperated, she snapped, “What does that have to do with this?” She pointed to the traffic. A long and loud horn blatted by them and on down the road.

Haden waited till it was gone to answer. “Leni, you asked me a question. I’m giving you the answer. How many times do I have to say that? What was your favorite song when you were fifteen?”

All right, all right—she’d go along with this and see where he was going with it. She squinted, trying to find the answer to his question in her attic of memories. Her favorite song? What grade was she in at fifteen, tenth?

Haden didn’t wait. “If you can’t remember that, who was your favorite rock group back then?”

A picture entered her mind: the three teenaged girls standing shoulder to shoulder in Flora’s living room. All of them were wearing huge, helmety horrible hairdos and identical black T-shirts that announced in yellow letters AC/DC, the heavy-metal rock group.

She smirked at the image and that memory, remembering the day and the mood: how cool they thought they were in those haircuts and shirts. “AC/DC. We all loved AC/DC.”

“Right. And what song of AC/DC was your theme song?”

She didn’t hesitate. “ ‘Highway to Hell.’”

Haden threw a thumb over his shoulder to indicate the busy road behind him.

She looked toward it and then back at him. “What? What are you saying?”

“There it is—your Highway to Hell.”

“I don’t understand, Simon.” Disturbed, she glanced again at the road. It was only a road, as far as she could see; just a road with lots of cars on it.

“This is your dreamworld, Leni. You made all of this and that’s part of it. You loved that song when you were young, so somewhere in your teenage dreams you made up a real Highway to Hell and this is it. Our problem is that we have to get across it now because what I need to show you is on the other side.”

“You mean all of these cars are driving to Hell?” The moment she said the word she became scared. “You mean there is a Hell?”

Haden could have answered that question and wanted to, but knew he wasn’t permitted. Restraining himself he said only, “We have to get across that road.”

“Wait a minute. Simon, those cars are going in both directions. How can they be going to Hell if they’re going in opposite directions?”

He looked at the ground, unwilling to make eye contact with her.

“Simon?”

A half-filled paper cup of Coca-Cola was tossed out the window of a passing car. It hit the ground near them and splashed across their legs. Leni screeched and was about to yell at whoever threw it, but saw something that stopped her. A few feet away the cup lay rocking back and forth on its side. She could see inside it. Three yellow somethings lay in there. Peering closer she realized they were three slices of lemon. Chin tipped up, she looked toward where the car had been seconds before, then back to the cup. Something was dawning on her; not fast but gradually. Leni looked at Simon Haden; she looked at the road, the cup, the road.

Taking several cautious steps forward, she tried to see into the passing cars to catch glimpses of the passengers. It was difficult because they moved by so quickly. But Leni had a powerful hunch now and wasn’t going to be deterred. While this happened, the song “Highway to Hell” played over and over in her head for the first time in years. It had been their anthem and rallying cry as teenagers. With their big hair and dreams of spectacular futures, the girls played the tune constantly, especially whenever they were together.

She knew her hunch was correct when she saw the hand. A car sped by. Sticking out of the passenger’s window was a bare arm, the fingers of the hand open and playing with the wind. For an instant she saw the fingernails—they were all painted green. She didn’t see who the hand belonged to, but the green fingernails were enough.

One day when they were twenty, Flora had given her a bottle of green fingernail polish as a joke. Because they were bored, the three friends had painted their fingers and toes with it. They’d even had a picture taken. Wanting to be certain though before asking Haden, she continued staring at the highway. In time Leni noticed something else which turned out to be the convincer.

All of the cars were the same. Seven different makes and models passed in both directions again and again and again. Car after car, always the same seven. Their colors never varied either. The Opel was always navy blue, the Volkswagen bus beige; every Mercedes-Benz station wagon that passed was white. Once she recognized this fact about the seven