the last book I ever read (Jim Harrison's The River Swimmer, excerpt ten)

from The River Swimmer: Novellas (The River Swimmer) by Jim Harrison:

They returned to Arles fairly exhausted for one more night, a brief dinner at Le Galoubet, and a night of vivid dreams about death. He got up for a glass of water and watched a drunk stumble across the town square making a moaning sound. In periods of extreme loneliness we don’t know a thing about life and death and the reality of water consoles us. In school he had long thought that history, the study of it, was an instrument of terror. Reading about either the American Indians or slaves can make you physically ill. He wanted a life as free as possible from other people, thus simply staying on the island was tempting. The possibility of stopping people from doing what they do to other people seemed out of the question. Congressmen die in bed.