[ WP ] You 've been writing the same book for 50 years with few breaks and no writers block . Your grandson finally has the courage to ask you about it .

`` I do n't get it.'' Jacob furrowed his brow, flicking back through the pages I given to him the week before. I had only sent him a selection of arcs from throughout the book, the day after his birthday, when he asked me over the phone. His mother told me, in a hushed voice, that he had been worrying over it the every day until they arrived at my house yesterday. 
 
 Now we both sat in the drawing room, me at my dark wooden desk, a family heirloom of my great-grandfathers. Dozens of thick manuscripts lay around the room, my best on the fine antique bookshelf by the fire, some wedged under uneven chair legs, and a couple tucked away goodness-knows where. 
 
 `` It starts off with Mary, the little girl?'' Jacob seemed confused. 
 
 `` Yes...'' I crossed my arms, listening intently to what he had to say. No-one except my late husband had ever read my tales. I would have let them, but they never asked. I guess my book carries an air of importance, something on a larger-scale. A secret. 
 
 `` But then, she grows up to be happy, and she marries Nicholas, and she just... dies?'' 
 
 `` Go on...'' 
 
 `` And then the book is about someone entirely different-'' 
 
 `` Not entirely, my dear. No, Callum is a friend of Mary's son, but at this point, he is an old man.'' 
 
 `` Okay, but then what? It just goes on, from person to person. Every now and then I see a link between the stories, but... It's just so random. It does n't work out! There's no... big ending, where you know that the whole book is finally over, not just someone's individual story.'' 
 
 `` That's because life does n't have that big ending, Jacob. There is no big trumpet flourish at the end, when everyone bows and the curtains come down. The world just keeps going, and the Earth keeps turning.'' 
 
 `` So will your book never end? You've been writing for years.'' 
 
 `` It will end, and it does. All things grind to a halt, and Mary and Nicholas, Mark and Callum, and all the other people you have n't even seen, the people of the writing sitting under the cat: All their stories are related, like the intertwining strings of a tapestry, my darling. And I will end them all in unison, as the tapestry is finished.'' 
 
 `` When *will* you finish the book, Grandma?'' 
 
 `` I do n't know, Jacob. Soon, not so soon. But I will.''
