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

part was that before carrying the pack to the kitchen to confront Ettrich, Broximon actually tried it on and the damned thing fit. After making sure Vincent was nowhere about, he maneuvered the pack around so that he could climb in and see how it felt. It felt fine.

“I’m supposed to ride around in this contraption on your back every time we go out?”

“I didn’t say that, Brox. What I’m going to do is take it along so in case we do need it out there, we’ll be prepared.”

“And by the way, did you happen to see the name of this thing? Did you see what it’s called on the label here?”

Ettrich pretended there was more juice in the empty glass and tipped it up to his mouth again. Yes, he knew what it was called but it was the only pack of its kind he found that he thought would fit Broximon.

“Babby Basket. I assume they meant baby basket, but they misspelled it. I’m supposed to go out on the street wearing these ridiculous horrible clothes and ride around on your back in something called the Babby Basket?

“Look, I have an idea—why don’t you just kill me now? Save us all the fuss. Your apartment is up high enough; throw me out that window. Us little progeria people fall just as fast as you big ones.”

Ettrich rubbed his nose. “Don’t be melodramatic. Do you want some grapefruit juice?”

After that ominous phone call today, Broximon went to the hall closet and got out the Babby Basket without Ettrich having to say anything. Every time they returned home after using it, Broximon took the cursed thing and buried it as deep as he could in the back of the closet. That didn’t change anything but it made him feel microscopically better.

Emerging from the dark land of coats with it in his hand, he was startled to hear Vincent’s vexed voice right behind him.

“Know what else that fucker said? He asked in this very sweet, very docile voice if I knew that the word anijo was Eskimo for falling snow, and that anjou is both a kind of pear and a region of France. He knows what my son’s name is and was rifling on it. The fucker taunted me with how much he knows.”

Brox said hotly, “Calm down! What the hell good is it going to do if you meet him all crazy and pissed off?”

“He knows my son’s name, Broximon! He knows about Anjo and glass soup and that Isabelle is here. Chaos is here—it talked to me on the phone. I’m not pissed off—I’m scared for them.”

“Well, don’t be—it does no good. Let’s go meet this guy and hear what he has to say.”

“Know what he answered when I asked if I could bring you with me? He asked if progeria was anything like a profiterole. He wanted to know if he could eat you.”

Isabelle, Leni, and false Broximon sat together on a brown park bench and stared up at the high oddity looming in front of them.

“It’s called a flakturm.”

“Say that word again.”

“Flak-turm.”

“Hmm.” False Broximon had never heard that word before but that was not surprising because he didn’t speak German.

“It’s an antiaircraft tower. The German army built them during World War Two. They put big guns on top to shoot at American airplanes going by. It’s made of pure concrete. After the war it was discovered they’re so thick and indestructible that they couldn’t demolish them by dynamiting them or whatever, without damaging every building in the neighborhood. So they just left them standing. I think there’s something like five still left around town.”

“What do they do with them now?”

“Nothing. There’s not much you can do. An architect wanted to build a hotel on top of one, but the city refused. This is the only one that’s actually used, as far as I know. They made it into an aquarium. There are exotic fish and reptiles inside. There are even sharks. That big glass canopy coming off the side is a tropical rain forest. Inside it really is like a jungle. There are monkeys and parrots.”

“Sharks and monkeys living inside an antiaircraft tower? Now that’s surreal.”

After the failure at the café, the three of them had walked into this park with the flakturm in the center on their way to Isabelle’s apartment. They were only about ten minutes away now.

They had gone to a café near Petras’s store because Isabelle remembered they served Mohr in hemd there. More than that, she wanted some time to think over what she had learned with Petras just now before seeing Vincent again.

When they arrived the café was half-empty. They had their pick of tables. They chose a large one by a window that was filled with light. Isabelle looked for a waiter so they could order but none was about. She settled into the wide seat and looked around, smiling.

Leni started to say something to her. Sitting on the windowsill, false Broximon sensed what she was about to say. He shook his head at her and glared. Let Isabelle find out for herself, his eyes said. Don’t you say a word. Leni looked away.

Isabelle’s revelation came a few minutes later. At first she didn’t mind or really notice that when the passing waiters finally did appear, none of them paid attention to her, although she kept raising a hand or her voice to beckon them over. Waiters in Viennese cafés are known for being testy and self-directed. They come and go as they please and if you don’t like that, tough. Cafés are not hurried places. You don’t go there to have a quick one and leave. You go there to chat or read or dream. The waiters know this and act accordingly.

In time though it became all too clear that these waiters weren’t ignoring Isabelle—they couldn’t see her.

“They don’t see me.” Her voice was quiet and composed. She was only stating a fact.

Leni nodded her head once