There was a flat-topped boulder in the center of the stream, but to lie on it he’d first have to get wet.  He’d have to leave his shoes and clothes and book on the shore unattended, brave the hurtling waters and scale the boulder some fifteen feet to get onto the desired plateau — which was surely too hot from the sun to put skin to.  And yet it was clearly a landmark, and it beckoned.  He made it to its wall, but furious attempts couldn’t locate fingergrips to scale it.  He didn’t feel the pain of it till he made it back to shore — a gash in his toe, another in one calf, and the broken fingernail on his left hand.  With no forethought, he hurled himself back waist deep into the stream, and it was only another step before he was chest deep, a step more to get to neck deep — momentarily, even submerged under turbulent waters, and like that he stayed.  It felt to him he needed a good cleansing, that desires and appetites were weighing him down, were turning on him, beginning to injure and harm him, and that he wanted to step back on shore a refreshened boy.