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:
“No one can write a best seller by trying to. He must write with complete sincerity; the clichés that make you laugh, the hackneyed characters, the well-worn situations, the commonplace story that excites your derision, seem neither hackneyed, well worn nor commonplace to him.... The conclusion is obvious: you cannot write anything that will convince unless you are yourself convinced. The best seller sells because he writes with his heart’s blood.”
—W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1966)
“Call on literary convention, and it will gladly tell your story for you.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Mr. Wiggam, I want you to change the policy of The Clarion. I want you to write a story I should have written myself long ago. I want you to tell the people of San Francisco that no city can exist without law and order. Write a story about that flag, write about what verifies and brings a promise of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. There are some people in this town who don’t seem to know that. Let The Clarion tell them.”
—Ben Hecht (1893–1964)