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

“No, it just looks that way from where you are sitting. The truth is they are still there but you can’t see them for some moments. It is their camouflage, Isabelle. Remember what I told you before about mimicry and camouflage. It is how these butterflies survive.”

She glanced at Petras. “That’s why the bottom of their wings is black? Anything below can’t see them because they’re so dark.”

He corrected her. “But only for a moment—just enough time for them to escape. Remember though, only the bottoms of their wings are dark. The tops are blue; a great blue.

“Black to your enemies, blue to all others.”

What Isabelle had realized while looking at the old telephone was that she could conjure a Petras in the same way she had earlier conjured false Broximon, but with one great difference. She had unconsciously reconstructed Broximon out of her fear, weakness, and need. In contrast, this Petras was a fully conscious creation, the deliberate product of love and a trust in her best memories of her friend. She had brought that man here now to help her.

In this singular world somewhere on the borderline between life and death, it was becoming clear that she had the power to do remarkable things. Even more so than Leni because Isabelle was alive in this world and Leni was not. At the same time, Isabelle now realized she must be extremely careful and precise about her choices. Here she could conjure “leprechauns” or summon the dead, but which versions and whether they would be of any help depended entirely on her foresight, perception, and will.

A little later as she was leaving, Petras said one last thing. “The heart and the mind rarely lie at the same time, Isabelle.”

She stopped in the doorway and waited for him to continue but he didn’t. “I don’t understand that.”

“Whatever you do now, listen to yourself carefully before acting. Try to recognize which part of you is telling the truth and which part is lying only because it’s safe or easier.”

“Know thyself?” she asked with a smile.

“Know thyselvessss,” he answered, elongating the last syllable so that he sounded like a buzzing bee.

When she stepped outside and pulled the door shut behind her, both Leni and false Broximon were there with sour looks on their faces. They had been waiting a long time.

“Well?”

“I want a Mohr im hemd. I’m trying to think of a place around here we can go to get one.”

Isabelle’s response was so unexpected that without thinking, Leni automatically asked, “What do you want?”

Isabelle repeated, “A Mohr im hemd.”

Broximon looked at both women and asked anyone, “What’s a Mohr im hemd?”

Leni looked from Isabelle to Broximon and then back at Isabelle again, her face all confused. “Chocolate cake.”

Vincent Ettrich was thinking about food when the telephone rang. While he crossed the living room to answer it, a bowl of soup was in the middle of his thoughts. A large white bowl full of thick goulash soup and several pieces of fresh bread. Brown bread, brown soup, white bowl…

He picked up the phone and absentmindedly said, “Hello?”

“Glass soup.”

The wording was so close to what he’d been thinking that Ettrich had to pause a moment to separate the two. Then another moment to remember and realize the import of what he had just heard.

Glass soup.

“Who is this?”

“Someone who knows both Isabelle and what glass soup means.”

Broximon came out of the guest room where Ettrich had put a child’s sleeping bag on the couch in there for him to use. “What’s going on?” He’d been taking a nap. His voice sounded yawny.

Ettrich pointed to the telephone receiver and signaled for Brox to wait. “What do you want?”

“It’s not what I want, Mr. Ettrich, it’s what you want.”

Vincent surfed through his mind trying to place the voice. Had he heard it before? He didn’t think so. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Then it would be good for us to meet so that I can explain, if you have time.”

Broximon mouthed What’s up?

Ettrich took the receiver from his ear and silently, slowly mouthed Glass soup.

Understanding immediately, Broximon tensed.

“Are you also a friend of John Flannery? We don’t need to meet.”

The voice on the other end of the phone became coy. “You’re wrong. What would you say if I told you she was here?”

“Isabelle?”

“Yes, she’s in Vienna.”

Outside of the apartment Broximon’s presence was a real problem. This became obvious immediately after he moved in with Ettrich and often accompanied him on errands around the neighborhood. People didn’t stop and stare at Broximon—they gasped and froze when they saw him. They covered their mouths with their hands at the sight of this perfectly formed, nattily dressed tiny man. He looked like something out of a fairy tale or a Fellini film. Broximon was slightly over nineteen inches tall. Bigger than when he had climbed out of an envelope in front of Simon Haden, he was nevertheless impossibly small in this environment. Despite his size, he had a man’s face and the only clothes he’d brought here were showy, elegant, and problematic. Ettrich shook his head emphatically no when Broximon showed them to him the first time.

“What, you gotta problem with pinstripes?”

“Broximon, you saw how people react to you on the street. If you don’t want to attract attention here, you cannot wear those clothes anymore.”

“Why not?”

“Because in this world, nineteen-inch-tall people are children. But you do not look like a child. Do you understand how that can make things difficult? You’re not even tall enough to qualify as a midget, or at least I don’t think so. You said you don’t want to attract attention and I agree. You should keep a low profile.” Ettrich was sitting on the couch and Broximon was standing nearby. He was not even as high as Ettrich’s knee.

“So what am I supposed to do?”

As if he’d been waiting for just that question, Ettrich reached for a red and black plastic bag next to him with the