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

in Salmannsdorf, it sat on the edge of a picturesque hilly vineyard. When they arrived that afternoon, the air was redolent with grilling chicken and ripe grapes. Perfect late-summer weather welcomed them to an outside table. The surroundings were still and almost silent. They were alone there in the garden except for a man Haden used to know who was sitting by himself in a far corner reading a newspaper.

They ordered wine and chicken because it smelled so good that it was irresistible. Then they sat back into happiness for a few minutes before talking about any next step. Isabelle was impatient to hear how they’d found her, but Leni and Simon looked so proud and jubilant that she thought it best to wait and let them bask in their triumph awhile before asking questions.

They didn’t get to bask for long. To their dismay and then annoyance, a radio somewhere started blaring. The peace and quiet was broken by the staccato sludge of a pop song. Leni looked at Isabelle and grimaced. Haden turned quickly this way and that, trying to locate the source of the jarring music so he could at least try and get someone to turn it down.

No luck. The obnoxious wail continued to fill the air and coat their good moods tongue-sick-yellow. Worse, when the song finally ended, another, even more egregious one immediately followed. It was the song by the rap group Drownstairs that had been so wildly popular a year or two before. The summer it came out, every time you turned on a radio it seemed that one was playing. There was no escaping it for a while.

“God, I hate this song.” Leni fanned a hand in front of her face. Not because it was hot but more like she wanted to get the tune away from her, as if it were an irritating mosquito buzzing around her head.

Haden said, “I hate this fucking song.”

Leni gave him a scornful look. “Simon, I just said that.”

He ignored her comment. “I just remembered that it was playing on the radio in the car when I died.”

“Whoa. You remember that?”

“Yes. I’m remembering more and more things now. Some of them aren’t so nice.”

That silenced them all for a while.

In spite of herself, Isabelle started humming the tune. She couldn’t help it.

Haden jolted everyone by suddenly shouting. “Will someone please turn off this fucking song, please?”

Whether he was heard and obeyed, or because this was Haden’s world and he was boss, the music stopped abruptly. Simon bowed his thanks and continued. “Not only is that song stupid, but did you ever see the video of it? The group gets chased across the desert by a big lizard and a guy in a silver space suit.”

“And George Bush. Don’t forget him.”

“That’s right, Bush was chasing them too. And do you remember what happens at the end of the video? Bush catches the group and eats them.”

“Eat?” Isabelle didn’t watch television so she hadn’t seen the video.

“Yup—President Bush eats black rappers. Eats them without taking off their wrappers.”

The waitress brought their drinks and said the chicken would be ready in a few minutes. After she was gone, Isabelle asked. “Then what happens?”

“Where?”

“In the video. If Bush eats the singers then that sort of ends the song, doesn’t it?”

Leni snorted. “You would think so, but unfortunately it goes on.”

The women continued talking. Haden tuned them out to think some more about the video and song. More precisely, to think about the last time he’d heard it, moments before dying. He was sitting in that car wash on La Cienega Boulevard in Los Angeles. Three days earlier he had been fired from his job. A month before that, the woman he had been living with had asked him to move out of her house. He remembered all of these things now, down to the smallest detail. When he first came here, he didn’t even know that he had died.

“Simon.”

Leni’s voice reached him, but just barely. He tried to ignore it. Only recently had he begun to see the events of his finished life with clarity and real understanding. This was the first time that penultimate moment had come back to him in full and he wanted to examine it to see if—

“Simon!”

“What, Leni?”

“What are you doing?”

“Why?”

“Because look around us! What are you doing?”

When he focused back in on the moment, he saw that everything was gone—the restaurant, the vineyards, everything but the three of them standing together in the middle of nowhere.

“What happened?”

Leni grabbed his shoulder. “That’s what I was asking. What were you just doing?”

“Thinking about when I died.”

“What else?”

“Nothing, Leni, only that.”

“Then what’s happened here?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

They would have said more and probably ended up arguing if the four members of Drownstairs, dressed in identical white jogging outfits and askew white baseball caps, hadn’t come sprinting out of nowhere and blown past them without saying a word. The only sounds they made were the swish of their clothes, the pounding of feet, and the loud labored breathing of four scared men running hard.

A few feet past them, the last man in white—the slowest of the bunch—stopped and turned to Haden. “You’d better get moving, man. Your girlfriend here just screwed up by humming our song.” He pointed to Isabelle. “Chaos heard her. It’s got out an all-points bulletin on her and it’s been listening. But you’re the one it wants to eat. We’re only the hors d’oeuvres. Know what I’m sayin’?”

Haden took a quick look at the women, then back again at this guy in white. “Why me?”

“Because everything in this world comes from your memory. It wants all of it gone.”

Without hesitation Haden said, “Isabelle, Leni, run.”

The women didn’t ask why because his face told them plenty. It said Trust me, we’re in danger, I’m scared and you should be too.

They ran. The man in white ran in front of them and they followed him. But the surroundings had disappeared. They ran across nothing