He didn’t know why, but it had always been like that. He could remember a violent hailstorm one day. Thomas leapt into a doorway and watched the leaves being ripped from the trees. He ran home. “It’s autumn all of a sudden,” he shouted. “All the leaves have gone from the trees.” His mother looked out of the window. “Of course they haven’t. What on earth makes you think that?” Thomas could see she was right. The trees were still covered in leaves. “Not here,” he said. “But in Jan van Eyck Street all the leaves are on the ground.” “Oh, I see,” said his mother. He could tell from her face that she didn’t believe him. Thomas went up to his room and took out the book he was writing. The Book of Everything, it was called. He picked up his pen and wrote. “It was hailing so hard that the leaves were ripped from the trees. This really happened, in Jan van Eyck Street in Amsterdam, when I was nine, in the summer of 1951.” He looked out of the window to think, because without a window he couldn’t think.
What do You think about The Book Of Everything (2004)?
