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

The boys had bought their lunches minutes before and were walking home with them. Those clean white cardboard boxes were still warm in their hands. One of the pizzas had slices of pineapple, goat cheese, and onion spread thickly across the top of it. The restaurant called it their pizza #7, “Hawaii Surprise.” It looked disgusting and smelled suspiciously like room freshener, especially after it had cooled awhile. But the kid who bought it loved #7—it was his all-time favorite.

They were in the middle of the pedestrian bridge that crossed over the autobahn. One of them, always the idiot, stretched his arm over his head. The pizza box rested on top of his fingertips like some kind of fancy tray a waiter brought to the table with a flourish. He planned on doing a few show-off things with it up there to impress his sidekick. Unfortunately he quickly lost the balance of the box and in a heartbeat it slid off his fingers and over the side of the bridge into the traffic below.

Flabbergasted by the mad coolness of the gesture, his friend threw his pizza box over the side too without a moment’s hesitation. But he launched his overhand, as if throwing a shot put.

The two mates looked at each other across an overjoyed split second and then took off running as fast as they could, laughing like loons at the total Dada awesomeness of what they had just done. Nonetheless they weren’t about to be caught and punished for the act. Only for the fleetingest of instants did either wonder what would happen when his large lunch landed on a vehicle speeding by on the road below.

Just over the edge of the bridge a lively gust of wind yanked open the first box and then flipped it aside, as if anxious to get to the food. But any pizza dropped from a great height holds together for only so long—sticky cheese or not. On #7, the yellow pineapple pieces were the first to pull off and fall alone. They were big chunks so they dropped pretty fast.

A few seconds later four of them hit the windshield of Isabelle’s Land Rover. Each one made a loud hard splat before exploding into strings and bits of yellow goo across the safety glass. What little was left slid leisurely down toward where the windshield wipers slept.

An even louder explosion went off above them when the twenty-inch body of the first pizza landed on the rear of the car’s metal roof. Isabelle was an excellent driver, steady and focused. But who can be expected to remain steady when attacked from above by plunging pizza and pineapple pieces?

Luckily the car was in the slow lane of the highway. When she veered hard to the right after the first hits no other vehicle was nearby. Even though her seat belt was fastened, Flora’s head snapped viciously to one side and then back against the headrest. She yelped from fear and outrage against everything that was happening. But her cry was cut off by the much larger punch of pizza body hitting the roof.

Skittering across the carpeted floor, Flora’s cell phone banged into one of her seat’s metal struts, bounced, and, small miracle, slid forward until it was directly in front of her right foot. She didn’t see it. But Broximon did. He had just gotten back up onto all fours after having been painfully thrown into the seat frame when the car veered to one side. Different parts of his body hurt now but he had to get to that phone. As he moved toward it, Isabelle slammed on the brakes and they stopped abruptly with a jerk and a screech. The phone jumped farther away.

Flora couldn’t get out of the car fast enough. The moment it came to a stop she unclipped her seat belt and flinging the door open, swiveled and moved. Her foot kicked the phone aside. Hyper-alert because of their near-accident, Isabelle heard the sound and looked down. There was the phone! Vincent was on that phone. She bent over and grabbed it up ahead of the now forgotten Broximon. There was only chaos around her but just having that phone in her hand, having him in her hand, made things better.

“Vincent? Vincent, are you still there?” Phone pressed to her ear, she opened the door and climbed out.

“Yes Iz, I’m here. What’s happening? What’s going on, are you okay?”

“I don’t know.” She saw and slowly recognized the pineapple on the windshield. She reached out to touch it to make sure those thick smears were what she thought, but changed her mind and dropped her hand. Looking next at the roof, she saw the pizza mess up there.

“My God.”

“What’s going on?” His voice was shrill.

“Something just hit my car. I think it was a pineapple.” She choked out a bewildered giggle.

“Isabelle, listen to me. Who’s in the car with you?”

“Flora.”

“Besides Flora—is there anyone else?”

She hesitated.

“Is Broximon with you?”

“Yes. I think he’s still here. But how did you know that, Vincent? Do you know him too?”

“It’s not Broximon. Do you hear me? Get away from him, Isabelle. Get away from the car.”

Ten feet away Flora paced back and forth, looking from Isabelle to the traffic speeding by. Their car stood at a strange urgent angle on the shoulder of the autobahn. It looked either like it had been carjacked or for some mysterious reason the driver had pulled over in a hurry, jumped out, and fled.

“What should I do, Vincent?”

“Where are you now? Where’s Broximon?”

“I’m standing out on the road. He’s still in the car I think. I was driving to the airport. That’s what he told me to do. Broximon said—”

Ettrich cut her off. “Forget that. Here’s what you do.”

When Isabelle disappeared Flora was not facing her. Who knows how that flighty woman would have reacted if she’d actually seen her friend walk a few steps with the phone still pressed to her ear, and then from