"What's wrong with me?" he mumbled, walking blindly in the crowds on the sidewalks. "Maybe I do lack the ability to believe. I think I believe. What have I missed?"
Only he, of all those who had learned the theory, had not vanished. Was faith, then, something so common, and yet impossible for he, himself, to reach?
Ahead was another bookstore. In its windows were the same displays.
He stopped. People were pushing through the doors. Inside they were picking up the book and looking for a clerk.
The clerks were smiling and saying things Fred couldn't hear, and wrapping the books and handing them to their new owners—people who would take them home and read—and vanish.
Into what? Something they would see, and smile at, and say, "Why, of course!" And with a simple acceptance they would enter it.
He watched them.
And from the depths of his being Fred longed to be one of them; to be able to go in and buy the book, and read it, and....
On the other side of the window, in the store, a clerk was waiting on a customer. The customer turned to look at him, with his nose flattened against the glass. He didn't see them. In his eyes was a faraway look, a startled light.