Norman looked up from his reading to see it was after midnight. He peeked again at the cover of the book: "Bloodlust in Ratland by Luther Hopjohn" it read.
Norman was seated in his reading chair in his little room with his books and magazines. It was still raining outside. He stood and stretched, pushed his glasses back against his forehead with a finger-tip and decided that this was the best thing he'd ever read. He placed it reverently back among his sacred books.
What a wonderful book, he thought. It may read like a cheap thriller, a nonsensical pot-boiler, but it's really the "Great American Novel" we've all been waiting for. Will I ever be able to do anything as good?
Norman brewed himself a cup of tea, then sat down at his writer's desk to continue work on this new character of his, this "Conrad Hawley" he had dreamed up to express what Norman called "the ultimate terror of my own small life." He was soon deep in his writer's trance.
They had hurried on ahead, across the river, leaving him behind as darkness fell. He felt inclined to stay behind and play on the rocks by the river, but he was afraid to be left alone in the gathering dark.
He heard them calling, voices out of the dark night, calling from the farther shore. "Cross the river, Conrad, cross the river."
They kept calling, like the voices of angels, and, as he crossed the river, upstream this time, fighting against the current every step, he realized what it would mean for him to cross back, for him to go on living in that God-forsaken hell....
Wandering forever in darkness, in a thicket of thorns...hearing always the wailing and gnashing of teeth...living only with the hope and the fear of the river...playing games you can't even lose right...enduring the endless boredom of life stuck in a rut...nothing to do but the same old sins...the petty thefts...the laziness...the cowardice...the lust....
He realized what it would mean and gave up, beaten at last, and slid gratefully into the river's last cold embrace.