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

alone, the care he took doing something so trivial but with such unmistakable love, swept her heart off its feet. When they had finished eating, he took her hand and brought it to his cool lips. He looked in her eyes for the longest time but said nothing and neither did she. Everything they needed for the rest of their lives together was there in that moment, that room, his gesture.

Afterward Vincent took the dog to the veterinary for a vaccination. The apartment felt too empty without him and the weather outside was so gorgeous that she decided to go for a walk. She ate fresh strawberry ice cream sitting outside at an Italian eissalon and then watched three black and white French bulldog puppies wrestling with each other in a pet store window on Neubaugasse. She wanted to amble around some more but suddenly felt overwhelmingly heavy and tired. This often happened to her now that the pregnancy was coming to term. Sometimes it made her feel frustrated, as if she wasn’t in control of her body anymore. But it had been such a lovely walk that she only smiled at the inconvenience and considered where she could go sit down and continue enjoying this day without having to move anymore. She slowly walked over to Esterhazy Park and took a seat on a bench with a good view of the fenced-in children’s playground.

In happy awe and a still-abiding feeling of disbelief, she watched the children. At that time of day most of them were infants brought out to play for a while in between naps. Isabelle thought Soon we’ll have a baby exactly like them. Soon we’ll be coming here or to some other park with a pram and a backpack full of extra diapers, a yellow plastic bottle with Anjo’s favorite fruit juice inside, and a red bag of zwieback biscuits. While she thought these things, the baby turned inside her. Because he moved right then, she pretended Anjo was checking out the playground with her: sandbox, swings, slide… When he was big enough they would use each one. What fun they’d have. There was so much to look forward to!

Isabelle was experiencing a perfect moment and was fully aware of it. She knew she had missed too many other perfect moments in her life because she’d been greedy or distracted or blind to them, but not this one. She was fully conscious of the fact that sitting here looking at these children and dreaming of Anjo was one of those extraordinarily rare moments in life when all of her stars and dreams converged to make these minutes perfect. Nothing could be better than this, absolutely nothing at all.

“Hello.”

She was so immersed in happiness and the serenity of the moment that she heard the voice only on the periphery of her consciousness.

“Is it okay if I sit here?”

With great calm she looked up and saw herself standing at the other end of the bench, dressed in different clothes from what she was wearing. She was surprised that she wasn’t surprised. “Sure, of course. Sit down.”

Isabelle sat down slowly and turned her legs to one side in a more comfortable position. “I need your help. I can’t do this. I can’t handle it but I know you can.”

The one who had been sitting on the bench watching the children knew this was right: she felt like she could handle anything in the world at that moment. “What do you want me to do?”

“Take my place. You’re still on that side of the glass and can do it. There are some things you don’t know, but it doesn’t matter. What’s most important is you’re strong and in control now and I’m not. Vincent won’t recognize the difference between us if you don’t tell him.

“I remember that day sitting in the park so well; I remember being so content and sure; just sure of everything. When was it, a month ago?

“I can’t return because I chose to come over. But you live there now, so please, take the rest of my life. Our life; however long it’s going to be. With all my being, I offer you my place in that world.

“Take the strength of how you feel right now, this minute. Take the happiness and expectation and hope…” she began to choke up “… and use it to live the rest of our life there. You’re so much stronger now than I’ll ever be—”

“You don’t have to say anymore. All right.” The expression on her face would have alarmed Putnam had he seen it. Because it was the look of a human being who does not doubt her purpose and is certain that it is good. A look that said I know why I’m here, and I know what I must do. Don’t try to stop me.

On hearing her agree to do it, the other Isabelle slumped forward, all of the tension in her back and shoulders beginning to leave. She let out a big breath and then tried to breathe regularly, to bring it back to normal before she attempted to say anything else.

“How is it done? How does it work?”

“First I must tell you about butterflies. Blue Morpho butterflies. And camouflage. We’ll have to fool them. We can’t let Putnam see the real color of your wings. ‘Black to your enemies, blue to all others.’”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” For a few seconds her eyes slid from the face of the nervous distraught woman sitting on the other end of the bench, to the children playing in a sandbox ten feet away. She couldn’t resist smiling again when she saw them.

Putnam had watched Isabelle get up and walk away from the table but didn’t think anything about it. He only assumed that she was upset by what he had been telling her boyfriend. Putnam watched her walk away toward the other side of the park, then brought his eyes and attention back to Ettrich.

“When I