Ik werd er helemaal stil van. En dat ben ik nog altijd.

Once upon a time a boy named Milan and his father lived together by the shore of a magic river.

If you went up the river toward its source you grew younger the farther you went. If you went downriver you got older. If you went sideways down one of the many tributaries of the river, look out! You could turn into someone else entirely.

Milan and his father traveled downriver in a small boat and he grew up into a man but when he saw how old his father had become he didn’t want to be a man anymore, he wanted to be a boy again. So they went back home and he grew young again and his father went back to normal too.

When Milan told his mother she didn’t believe his story, she thought the magic river was just a river and she didn’t care where it came from or where it went or what happened to those who moved upon its waters.

But it was true. He and his father both knew it was true, and that’s what counted.

The end.

En verhaaltje van Salman Rushdie voor zijn zoontje van een paar jaar. In Joseph Anton: A Memoir.