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

When Flora did turn around to face Isabelle it was to announce Okay, that’s enough, I want to go home now. We can talk about things tomorrow or over the phone or at another time. But right now—

But right now Isabelle was gone. After Flora saw and absorbed that fact, she called out to her friend first tentatively, then louder. For a while she was certain that Isabelle was still somewhere nearby only just not immediately visible. Like when you take the dog for a walk; look away a moment, it invariably disappears over a hill or around a corner and has to be yelled back. But here they were on a flat stretch of autobahn with no hills or corners to disappear behind. No matter how stubbornly she denied it, eventually Flora had to accept the fact Isabelle was gone.

By the time a taxi pulled off the highway and right up behind the Range Rover eight minutes later, Flora was gone too. In her high heels, silk stockings, and formal dress she had nevertheless managed to climb over a waist-high concrete safety barrier and down across a muddy ditch toward civilization.

Vincent Ettrich got out of the cab and walked straight to Isabelle’s car. His taxi pulled away and back into traffic. Opening the door to the Rover, he saw Broximon sitting on top of the dashboard, back to the windshield. He acknowledged Ettrich by giving a halfhearted salute with two fingers to his forehead. “Hey Vincent. Do you know who I am?”

Ettrich nodded. He had been told in great detail about Broximon.

“You’re late.”

“She’s gone?”

Brox shifted his ass to a more comfortable position. “She’s gone. Both women are gone. I didn’t think Flora had it in her but by God, she just climbed right over that wall and kept on moving. I assume she’s going home.”

Furious, Ettrich slapped his hand down on the roof of the car. “Damn it! If I’d just had a few more minutes… I would have gotten here and this wouldn’t have happened. I would have stopped her.”

“I don’t think so, Vincent. It was done too fast. They knew exactly what they were doing. As soon as Flora’s telephone rang I knew it was them. And I knew they’d try some kind of trick, but I never imagined they’d use your voice as bait. That was genius. Of course she went when she heard you. She got out of the car with the phone, took a few steps and zip—she was gone. They tricked her into choosing to go there. She couldn’t have done it on her own because Isabelle doesn’t have that power anymore. They told her she was in danger and the only safe place to hide was over there. She said I want to go and that was it—her choice. She probably thought you were helping her. And I was fooled because I thought once I got her out of town she’d be safe.”

Ettrich sighed, and stared into the distance. “Maybe. Maybe you’re right, but I would like to have tried, damn it. What could they have said to her to get her to go over there so fast?”

“I don’t know.”

“What happens to you now, Broximon?”

The little man carefully brushed nothing off his knee. “What happens to me? Nothing. I stay here now. I can’t go back. They told me that when I volunteered to do this. I’m stuck here for good. Your world is my new home whether I like it or not. Do you know of any nice apartments for rent?” Brox tried to keep the irony and sadness out of his voice but Vincent heard both. He knew what a great sacrifice it had been for Broximon to come over here to try and save Isabelle. It must be especially miserable for him now that he had failed and knowing there was no going home.

Ettrich sat down in the driver’s seat and pulled the door closed. After it slammed shut he took a deep breath and let it out long and loudly.

Broximon studied his expression and guessed correctly what he was thinking. “You can’t follow her there, Vincent, so don’t even think about doing that. Isabelle chose to go over. The living can visit death as often as they like if they know how. The dead can’t, and you know that.”

Ettrich slid a hand into his breast pocket, took out a pair of black eyeglasses, and put them on. Reaching for the keys still dangling from the ignition, he started the motor. “I can’t just sit here and wait for her to come back; hope that she’ll find a way to come back. I can’t do that, Brox. If I do I’ll go crazy.”

“If you go there now, Vincent, you can’t return. Isabelle brought you back from the dead once. But if you go there now then you’ll have to stay. That won’t help anything—not you, not her, and not your child.”

“Well what am I supposed to do?”

Broximon was encouraged that Vincent had at least asked the question. “For now? Just wait. Wait and see what develops. There were three people at that funeral who understood what glass soup really meant: you, Isabelle, and the guy who calls himself either John Flannery or Kyle Pegg, depending on who he’s with. You know who Flannery is now, don’t you?”

Ettrich nodded. “Yes, I found out back there.” He gestured with a finger toward the direction he had just come from.

“Right—because you had to know.

“The three of you have experienced life after death. But you and Flannery know more about it than she does. It will take time for her to understand it more completely.”

“She knows about the mosaic, Broximon. We’ve talked about it a lot. And she has experienced death; at least my death.”

“But not her own and that’s the difference. It’s a whole other thing. Right now she’s in Simon Haden’s after-death world. Before, she was in yours. Both times for her it’s been like