Story
The story begins in Princeton, New Jersey, 1954, with Albert Einstein. Einstein is living in regret of his discovery of mass-energy equivalence (E = mc²), believing it led to the construction of the atomic bomb.
He meets two children, Hikaru and Haruhi, who can see the past and future in their dreams. They tell him that ever since the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Yggdrasil, the tree of life, is dying.
However they discover that in the future there is a girl with special powers who saves the tree. Einstein then gives them drugs which slow their aging so they can meet this girl. He dies later the same day; April 18, 1955. He then becomes the story's disembodied narrator, following around the young boy Robin.
In Tokyo, 2005, Hikaru and Robin finally find the girl, Ruika. Ruika is pretending to be her young brother Masato, who died in an airplane crash, to keep her mother from grieving.
Read more about this topic: Global Garden
Famous quotes containing the word story:
“A good story is one that isn’t demanding, that proceeds from A to B, and above all doesn’t remind us of the bad times, the cardboard patches we used to wear in our shoes, the failed farms, the way people you love just up and die. It tells us instead that hard work and perseverance can overcome all obstacles; it tells lie after lie, and the happy ending is the happiest lie of all.”
—Kathleen Norris (b. 1947)
“If I were just curious, it would be very hard to say to someone, “I want to come to your house and have you talk to me and tell me the story of your life.” I mean people are going to say, “You’re crazy.” Plus they’re going to keep mighty guarded. But the camera is a kind of license. A lot of people, they want to be paid that much attention and that’s a reasonable kind of attention to be paid.”
—Diane Arbus (1923–1971)
“Of all the rides since the birth of time,
Told in story or sung in rhyme,—”
—John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892)