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

out on the autobahn when she saw that Isabelle was gone. The difference between them was Ettrich, unlike Flora, knew exactly what to do in response. He put his hand back on the tree and Kyselak promptly reappeared, still sitting on his rock.

“Very good, Vincent. Very, very good.”

Ettrich looked at his hand against the tree. He understood that by making contact with it, he touched the tree’s entire history. He had brought it all into this moment to see, including Kyselak who had carved his name into it so long ago.

Ettrich tried something like this earlier when he showed Isabelle her hand’s past, present, and supposed future. But now that he understood how to do it properly, he knew it was not possible to show the future because it doesn’t exist yet, not even in time. Isabelle’s missing finger was only one of many future possibilities for her.

What a person could do was see the past and present at the same moment if he knew how to perceive time the correct way. Ettrich was doing it right now: here he was, talking to a man who had cut his name into this tree almost two centuries ago.

“Can you do it to yourself now?”

“I don’t understand.”

Kyselak stretched his arms behind him on the stone and leaned back on them. “What you’re doing with the tree—experiencing its whole history, seeing everything about it. Can you do that to yourself?”

The question frightened Vincent. “I think I can but to tell you the truth, the thought scares the shit out of me.”

“You don’t want to see what made you what you are? You don’t want to see your life as it really was, or is?”

Despite his anxiety, Ettrich half smiled when he remembered something. “The truth mirror.”

“What’s that?”

“I had a teacher in high school who used to talk about a truth mirror. He told us to imagine a mirror that when you look in it, it shows you the absolute truth about who you are—both the good and the bad. It was like God—it knew everything about you and wouldn’t lie. We talked about it a lot in class. Then he asked how many of us would want to try it. Not many raised their hands.”

“Did you, Vincent?”

“No.”

“Ramses the Great of Egypt had a tame lion named Slayer of His Foes. Did you know that?”

Ettrich was taken aback. He had no idea what Kyselak was talking about. Ramses the Great? A tame lion?

“No. Uh no, I didn’t know that.”

“He did and so do you. You have a Slayer of Your Foes too. A very powerful one.”

Ettrich spoke carefully. “I’m not getting this. I don’t really understand.”

“You have a lion too, Vincent; it’s in you and part of you. A Slayer of Your Foes. That lion led you to this place in the forest. It told you to touch my autograph on the tree and then how to summon me. It can do miraculous things if you learn what else it is capable of doing; if you learn what you’re capable of doing. Bringing me back now is only a sample of that.

“But your lion doesn’t come when you call. It’s not tame yet. To make that happen, you have to look in your truth mirror and see who you really are. There’s no other way, Vincent.

“You can’t know what you’re capable of if you don’t know who you are. You know what life is and you know what death is. You even know what Glass Soup means. It’s time to learn what else Vincent Ettrich knows in every corner of his soul. Get past the good and evil in you. That’s the small stuff. Find the immortal parts.”

It didn’t take long. It took no time at all to do what Kyselak recommended. A short while later Vincent Ettrich walked out of the forest near where he had entered it. He saw that his car was gone but that didn’t disturb him. He knew Isabelle was with Broximon and that she was safe for the moment.

He walked onto the road and turned right in the direction of Weidling. It would take him about fifteen minutes to walk into town but that was good. It would allow him time to organize his thoughts and hopefully figure some things out now that he saw the world and his life with new eyes.

He walked on the shoulder of the road with his head down while the occasional car drove past nearby. He did not notice the lovely small Jugendstil villas tucked away among the trees, or the centuries-old wood-and-stone farmhouses that were a reminder that these surroundings had once been rural countryside, easily a day’s journey from Vienna. If he had wanted to, Ettrich could have stopped at any of those buildings and by touching a wall seen what life had once been like there.

In the courtyard of one small farmhouse, he could have witnessed the winter day in 1945 when invading Russian troops shot the thin family horse and then feasted on its steaming body. Or several houses down, Franz Schubert sitting in the lush garden on a sunny day, feeling peaceful and well for the first time in months. Ettrich was able to see such things now but knew he must concentrate on how best to save Isabelle and Anjo from Chaos.

A taxi driver who lived on that road was just beginning his shift and driving to Vienna. He was surprised to see a man in a dark suit waving him down. People who lived out here didn’t often wear suits or use taxis. They either had their own cars, bicycled, or walked. The driver was delighted when this customer with the American accent said in good German that he wanted to go to the airport. A long ride from there, it meant a fat fee. This was a nice way to start off the day.

The driver, whose name was Roman Palmsting, would begin to regret this ride about halfway through it. As they passed