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

was but Broximon didn’t. At the moment however, architecture wasn’t much on his mind. When he saw the building he frowned at how strange and out of place it was. Then he went back to studying the garrulous old man in the hat.

“So I told them let me go and talk to Vincent Ettrich. Let me try to make a deal with him that we’re all happy with. He’s a reasonable man. I’m sure I can find a way. They said go ahead, give it a try.”

“And part of your deal would be to eat Broximon like a profiterole?”

“That was a joke, Vincent! I was kidding. Come on, did you really think I was serious? I didn’t have to bring you here now. I didn’t have to show you Isabelle. That was my decision—a gift to you to prove my good intentions.”

They walked up some stairs and entered the park. Immediately to the right at the top was a fenced-in soccer/basketball court. It was bustling with boys of all ages playing, running, shouting, their soccer and basketballs flying around everywhere. Sitting on benches right outside the cage were a whole other group of kids watching these games, or watching the girls that were among them, or showing off, smoking, being loud, singing, practicing bad karate moves, practicing the latest dance steps…

One of the girls sitting on a bench happened to look over and saw Broximon. She let out an ugly short high squeal and touched her face. Her girlfriends looked his way to see what she was squealing about. When they saw him they all reacted differently. One jumped up and walked quickly away into the park and never looked back. Two other girls started giggling and then punched each other to shut up.

The boys were even worse. When they saw Broximon they gaped at him or smiled either malevolently or stupidly, as if they were visiting a zoo and had happened upon the cage of some bizarre animal. Never having seen anything like this little freak in his Babby Basket, this child with the distinctive man’s face, what else could they do but stare at him until they’d had their fill?

Ettrich saw the reactions and winced. He said, “They’re just being kids, Brox. They’re all dummies.”

Every time it had happened here, and this was certainly not the first time, it hurt and shamed Broximon deeply. How the citizens of this world reacted to him made Broximon want to disappear even more. But he never said a word about it. Why should he? There was nothing anyone could do and Ettrich had enough problems as it was.

“Do you want me to make them go away? I’ll be happy to.” Putnam had dropped back to walk beside Vincent, right up next to Broximon.

In spite of himself, the little man’s curiosity got the best of him. He found himself asking, “What can you do?”

“Oh, many things. For starters, I can bring the birds down. Fun stuff. That would be entertaining. We’d have our own Hitchcock film right here in the park. You just have to say the word and we’ll have The Birds.” Putnam pointed up toward a towering chestnut tree nearby. Looking attentively, they saw that it was chockfull of crows sitting on the branches. Big fat things, there must have been twenty-five of them up there scattered throughout the tree. Oddly, they were all silent which was not like that screechy breed. Caught up in the events of their own loud busy world below, the kids paid no attention to them.

“Or rats, if you prefer something more earthbound. There are a large number of rats in this park. You don’t see them now because during the day they keep their own council. But they’re there to help if I ask them.” Putnam spoke in a sympathetic, concerned voice.

“Let’s just get out of here,” Broximon managed to say although his imagination delighted in images of all these young shitheads and their tight-jean queens fleeing screaming from waves of attacking rats and crows.

Ettrich hefted him higher onto his back and picked up the pace. “How much farther do we have to go?”

“We’re almost there. Come on.”

A few hundred feet farther on, Isabelle craned her head back to look once again at the stained gray flakturm. Leni saw Vincent first when he and the old man came into view. “Isabelle.”

“Yeah?” She didn’t move her head.

“Vincent’s here.”

“What? Where?”

Leni pointed. “There. Right over there.”

“Oh my God.” When Isabelle first saw him, she unconsciously slid both hands around the bulge of her stomach, around their unborn child. Her hands told Anjo Look, look, there he is. There’s your father. “Who is that with him? Who’s that old guy?”

“I don’t know.”

False Broximon saw his real self in the carrier on Ettrich’s back. He was fascinated but at the same time in turmoil about how he felt. That’s him, he thought, that’s me. That’s who I’m supposed to be. He felt like a counterfeit bill.

Putnam led Ettrich to a group of picnic tables about twenty feet away from Isabelle and her companions. He gestured for Vincent to sit down, his back facing the flakturm. When he did, Putnam pointed to an empty bench nearby. “She’s sitting over there, watching you. She’s smiling and rubbing her stomach.”

Vincent looked over but saw nothing. Neither did Broximon. “I don’t see anyone.”

“Yes, Isabelle’s sitting there, along with Leni Salomon and a Broximon but a bad copy of this one. She must have made it herself.”

Vincent and real Broximon listened to this but neither of them saw anything. “Prove it.”

Putnam called out, “Isabelle, would you come over here, please?”

She checked Leni who enthusiastically nodded for her to go. Isabelle walked over to the table and sat down facing Vincent. His features were drawn and thin. What had he been eating? That’s the first thing that crossed her mind when she looked across the table at her great love—He hasn’t been eating enough.

Putnam pointed directly at her and said to Vincent, “She’s here now.