"The Neverendng Story" is a Pipedream

I hate finishing a book. Granted, there's a feeling of accomplishment that I get when it's over, and everyone loves knowing just what happens at the end: my mom, for instance, starts there. She reads the last chapter first, because if the book ends badly, she doesn't want to waste her time reading the rest of it.
I loathe the end of a book for one precise reason: I can never go back. You see, when I read a book - and, just so we're clear, I'm talking about fiction and travel memoirs, specifically - I go there. I'm living with the characters, I eat with the narrator, I battle alongside the hero(ine), and when that's over and the story comes to an end, I have to go back. Now, I love my life. I'm blessed in oh! so many ways. But when you've become a brother to Lewis Gillies in Albion, watched him grow from an unfit Oxford scholar into the fierce champion of a Celtic king, well, there's a sort of disappointment that accompanies the final page of that last chapter.
People say, "Oh, you know you can go back! All you have to do is continue the story in your own mind, and the characters can live again, in you!" Thanks for those wise words, LeVar Burton. Next time the magic cartoon rainbow comes gliding out of the ocean's horizon, I'll do just that. But on my side of the acid trip, you can't really go back. Know why?
Sequels. No matter what you imagined would happen in that far away land, the author, oddly enough, has his own view of things. Guess who's always right! No one was so adept at screwing up my head when it came to sequels as Anne Rice. That woman could throw a plot twist in that could kill the main character. Twice. And he'd still rise from the proverbial ashes to be in yet another storyline.
The only thing worse than finishing an awesome book is finishing an awesome series. Try going back to Narnia. You can't! It's over! C.S. Lewis finished off that entire world with The Last Battle! Anything you imagine happens there after the last chapter is read is utterly false, if you really think about it. If that example fails to convince, then try imagining Harry Potter's life at college, or how his kids will behave. Almost disheartening when you even try, isn't it?

Ok, breathe easy. The cynicism stops here. I love books. I'm even getting to the point where I enjoy reading them again. I'll probably start (and finish) countless other series before Jesus comes to get me. But, just once, I'd like for an author to start an interesting new concept, one where the last chapter is yanked from the press. Let us all be right when it comes to the conclusion of the stories we've created inside of our own minds. True, the story is yours alone, but when you share it with the rest of us, our own humanity and imagination graft it into our minds, and it becomes partly ours, as well. So, until Harry Potter can be revealed to have eaten Fawkes' ashes, or evidence arises to suggest that Rhi Bran y Hud found a potion of immortality, I'm going to keep reading. I have no choice. Those hidden worlds draw me in like a moth to a... moth trap. I hate clichés. We'll cover that whole mess later.