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

Nelly looked at Mrs. Dugdale and opened her mouth wide like the ventriloquist’s dummy she had just become. It was all right though because she also knew what was about to happen. Out of her little girl’s mouth came a man’s deep voice—calm but a little threatening too—Simon Haden’s voice.

“You mean old witch! You haven’t changed at all in thirty years. I’m sure you’re still torturing your students when no one is watching. When your door is closed and you think you’re safe. Remember Clifford Snatzke, huh? Remember what you did to him? Well, surprise! You’re not safe and some of us do know exactly what you’ve done, bully. Shithead.”

Nelly mouthed his words perfectly. She could feel Haden’s hand on her back manipulating her, but he didn’t need to because the two of them were wholly in synch with the words. What he wanted to say she wanted to say, and she did.

When he was finished and staring triumphantly at Dugdale’s stunned face, Haden barely heard a voice nearby say, “Well, it’s about time. Bravo for you.”

He shifted his eyes over and down and to his real surprise, there was dapper little Broximon, hands on hips, a big smile on his face. Where had he suddenly come from?

A million or a billion synapses and connections and whatever else suddenly happened in Haden’s brain. Something big was taking form in there, something was coming clear. He suddenly looked at life around him. At the street, the cars, the people, the sky, the world. And then an instant later, Simon Haden understood.

He gasped through a mouth that reappeared on his face the moment he made his discovery. He lowered Nelly Weston to the ground.

This city, this planet, this life around him was his own invention. He had created all of it. He knew that now. Where had he created it? In the dreams he had every night while he slept.

He looked at Mrs. Dugdale and was almost as surprised to sec that she was smiling at him and nodding. So was Broximon. So was every person nearby. A small dog on a leash was staring and smiling at him too. He knew the dog’s name—Kevin. He knew because he had created it one night. He had created this entire world.

Simon Haden finally realized that he was surrounded by a city, a life, a world that he had gradually made every night of his life in his dreams. Everything here was either fashioned by him, or taken from his conscious life and carried over into his dream world where he could play with it, fight against it, or try to resolve it in a place of his own.

At forty, Simon Haden had had more than fourteen thousand dreams. A lot of material there with which to build a world.

“I’m dead.” He stated this—he did not ask it as a question. He looked at Broximon. The little man kept smiling but now he nodded too.

“That’s what death is—everyone makes their own when they’re alive. That’s why we have dreams. When we die all of our dreams come together and form a place, a land. And that’s where we go when we die, isn’t it?” This time Haden looked at his old third-grade teacher for corroboration and she nodded too.

“Then you live in that dreamland you created until you recognize what it really is, Simon.” She said it cheerfully, in the same tone of voice one would use to proclaim that it was a beautiful day.

Thoughts, images, and particularly memories shot back and forth across Haden’s mind like tracer bullets in a night firefight. Octopus bus drivers, cars that flew, beautiful blind women—

“That blind woman—I remember her now. I remember the dream of mine she was in. She was always saying the same thing again and again. It drove me crazy. I had the dream right after I got married. I dreamt—”

Broximon waved the rest away. “It doesn’t matter, Simon. So long as you realize what this is all about now, you can fit the individual pieces together later.”

“But I definitely am dead?” For some reason, Haden looked at little Nelly Weston this time for the answer. She made a child’s big up-and-down nod to make sure that he understood.

He gestured with both hands at the world around them. “And this is death?”

“Your death, yes,” Broximon replied. “And you created all of what’s around us at one time or another while you were alive. That is, except for Mrs. Dugdale and things like that giant bag of caramels on the bus. Remember how much your father loved caramels?”

Haden was petrified to ask the next question but knew that he must. In a low voice, almost a whisper, he asked, “How long have I been here?”

Broximon looked at Dugdale who looked at Nelly who looked at Broximon. He sighed, puffed out his cheeks and said, “Let’s just say you’ve had this meeting with Mrs. Dugdale pretty often. But before this, she’s always won. You should be very proud of yourself, Simon.”

“Answer me, Broximon. How long have I been here?”

“A long time, pal. A very, very long time.”

Haden shuddered. “And I’m just realizing now what it’s all about?”

“Who cares how long it’s taken, Simon? You know now.”

The woman and the girl nodded vigorously in agreement. Haden noticed that the rest of those around them were nodding too in much the same way. Even Kevin the dog was nodding—everyone clearly agreeing on this issue.

“Well, what am I supposed to do with it? What am I supposed to do now?”

Mrs. Dugdale crossed her arms over her chest and wore a very familiar expression on her face. Haden remembered it well. “Today you finally passed first grade, Simon. Now you move on to second.”

An icy chill tiptoed up Simon Haden’s spine. “Death is like school?”

Again, everyone and everything there grew the same smile and looked very pleased at his progress.

A Hot, Dark Yes

“If I were married to a woman who dressed like that, I’d murder her clothes and