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

going into someone else’s house and not knowing where anything is—not the bathroom or the kitchen…” Broximon looked at Ettrich and saw that nothing he’d said so far had helped. “But there’s good news too, Vincent; something incredibly important. Isabelle saw me. Flora didn’t. No one else at that funeral would have either, even though they all saw Leni holding up that sign.

“But Isabelle saw me and talked to me, which means—”

Ettrich finished Broximon’s sentence “—she can see in both worlds now and they overlap for her.”

“Exactly, and that is a huge advantage for her. Chaos has to hate it particularly because it means things are more equal now. It will have to play on a much more even field with her. Isabelle may not realize it for a while, but she’s become a redoubtable opponent, Vincent. You can be sure that she makes them nervous.”

Ettrich pulled his ear. “Redoubtable. What does that mean?”

“It means kick ass, my friend. It means your woman has got game now.”

“You take off clothes. Lie down on table.”

Unpleasant music played while Isabelle undressed. It was the kind of kitschy, cloying Muzak one invariably hears playing in the background at Chinese restaurants. High-pitched, single-stringed twinging and twanging.

“Take off everything? Even my underwear?”

“No, no—keep underpant on. Underpant and bra.” The doctor spoke impatiently, not once looking up from the notes she was writing on her clipboard. Whenever this small thin woman spoke it sounded like a command. Isabelle was cowed but intrigued at the same time.

When she had undressed, she lay down bit by bit on the white examining table. Although it was covered with a cotton sheet, the table was chilly. Cold enough to make her shiver.

The doctor finished writing and put the clipboard down silently on the desk. That was another thing Isabelle had noticed about this woman: when she spoke it was to command, but everything else she did silently. The contrast between the two traits was disconcerting. “Now we look at Zi Cong Baby Palace, huh?”

Isabelle lifted her head off the table and looked at the doctor. “What did you say?”

To her surprise, the doctor reached down and put a small warm hand on her stomach and gently patted it. “This is your Zi Cong Baby Palace. That’s what we call it in Chinese medicine. You call it wum.”

“Wum?” Unconsciously Isabelle began to smile. She couldn’t help it. What was a wum?

The doctor saw nothing funny in this and patted her stomach again. “Wum. You-tore-us.”

“Uterus. Oh yes, the womb!”

“Yes—wum.”

This memory of her initial visit to the Chinese doctor in Vienna lifted Isabelle’s spirits and made her feel better for the first time since arriving here. Arrive was not really the accurate word though. Appeared was better, or materialized. As had happened every time in the past, she moved from her world and reality to this one with the ease of turning her head from left to right. One moment she was standing next to the autobahn near Schwechat, talking on a cell phone to Vincent. A blink later she was sitting at a large outdoor sidewalk café eating a bowl of lousy chocolate pudding with nuts and thinking about her baby palace. She stared across the street at a storefront that had a sign above the door announcing: TRADITIONAL CHINESE MEDICINE. Seeing that sign had handed her a lovely bouquet of memories of the first days of her pregnancy. She reveled in them.

She said the word wum now under her breath and then spooned up some more of the chocolate pudding. She did not like chocolate pudding and this bowl of it was bad. Too thin and watery, it had the consistency of a sluggish milk shake and with the added insult of nuts mixed in. On the other hand, pregnancy had given Isabelle a sweet tooth the likes of which she had never experienced before and any kind of sugar these days was okay with her.

Wedged between the salt and pepper shakers in the middle of the table was a menu. She reached over and picked it up. Perhaps there was something a bit more appetizing to eat at this place. Still, judging from the tasteless pudding, eating here was dubious. The menu was black with neat white script lettering. Opening it, she was more than surprised to see that it offered only two things—chocolate pudding and lima bean soup.

Lima bean soup?

Isabelle put the menu back in its place and looked again at the Chinese medicine building across the street. As far as she knew, there was nothing else to do here now, so she allowed her mind to slip back into daydreaming about her first visit to the Chinese doctor.

Petras Urbsys had recommended the acupuncture treatments. He gave her the name of his doctor after hearing that she felt listless and tired much of the time. She was not usually an alarmist but had begun to wonder if this lethargy was due to her pregnancy. Isabelle had never done anything like acupuncture before so she was hesitant to go at first but later grew to enjoy it. For three or four days after each treatment she felt revitalized and vibrant with residual energy. The doctor was a stern no-nonsense woman who clearly knew her business and made Isabelle feel like she was in safe hands.

Across the street the front door of the building she had been watching swung open and a woman walked out. Nondescript, middle-aged, dressed in beige, there was not one reason to notice her. Isabelle didn’t for several seconds while continuing to daydream about her acupuncture treatments. Finally some part of her brain shook her and said Look who’s there. She straightened and focused her attention on this anonymous woman who was already halfway down the block.

Realizing who it was, Isabelle stood and hurried after her because she had to talk to that woman. For the first time in Simon Haden’s dreamworld she had recognized someone she knew! It was astounding, and even more so considering