Contents
Cover
About the Book
About the Author
Title Page
Dedication
1. Journey to the centre of the earth
2. Journey to the centre of the universe
3. Journey to the centre of town
4. Journey to the centre of absolutely everything
5. Journey back to the centre of the universe
6. Keys to the city at the centre of the universe
7. Love and friendship at the centre of the universe
8. Heaven and hell at the centre of the universe
9. Gold, ghosts and golf at the centre of the universe
10. Crime and midgets at the centre of the universe
11. Fire and brimstone at the centre of the universe
12. Phoning home from the centre of the universe
13. Back at the manhole cover at the centre of the universe
14. Journey back to the centre of the earth again
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Copyright
About the book …
Danny Wallace wanted to write about a place so special and so crucial to our existence that it has never before been tackled: the Centre of the Universe.
But then he realised that getting there might be a problem, and when he did, there’d probably be nothing much to write about. Until he heard about a manhole cover, on a small street, in a small town, tucked away in a remote part of Idaho.
The manhole cover had been declared the Centre of the Universe. The mayor had the science to back it up. The town rejoiced. And the name of the town? Wallace.
It was a cosmic coincidence Danny couldn’t resist…
About the author …
Danny Wallace has written several books, including Join Me (all about what happened when he started his own cult), and Yes Man (all about what happened when he decided to say ‘Yes’ … to everything). Both are currently in development for film. He also presents TV shows. His own six-part BBC2 series, How To Start Your Own Country, recently saw him become a King. But you might also have caught him on BBC1, SkyOne, Channel 4, or on a chat show in Belgium, where for some reason he is loved. He lives in London, and he says he adores you.
Danny Wallace and the Centre of the Universe
In Memory of Gold Joinee Cazz
Danny would like to thank …
The truly lovely people of Wallace, Idaho – in particular Mayor Ron Garitone, Prime Minister Rick, and of course the font of all knowledge, Greg Marsh (whose excellent Wallace website you can find at www.wallace-id.com). Cheers!
1 Journey to the centre of the earth
‘It was the sound I heard first. There were lights in the sky, and police on the streets …
‘The sound became deafening and then we saw them …
‘One marching band. One Mayor. Hundreds of people.
‘They all stood around a manhole cover that had been roped off with police tape. The Mayor started to make a speech. He was declaring the manhole to be the Centre of the Universe. The entire town cheered.
‘The Mayor explained that since nobody can prove that the manhole isn’t the Centre of the Universe, then the manhole must be the Centre of the Universe.
‘And the strangest thing is, it all kind of made sense …’
Eyewitness Zurin Trzaska,
a confused tourist passing through town,
25 September 2004
Monday
THERE ARE TWO things you can see very clearly from my window right now.
One is the sky. A huge, dark blue sky. And the other is London. Not all of it. Just bits of it. Bits like the Dome. Or the skyscrapers around Docklands. Or this one weird tower, far away. A weird tower that they light up at night, which just sits there – all bright and white, on top of a hill.
For years, I had no idea what that tower was. All I knew was, even on a mucky, cloudy night you could see it, like someone had drawn it on your window in Tipp-Ex.
And then one day I found myself standing right next to that tower. I hadn’t meant to. I was up on a hill, miles from home, trying to spot where I lived in the distance. I could see all of London. Well, not all of it. Just bits of it. Bits like the Dome. Or the skyscrapers around Docklands. But I couldn’t see that one weird tower, far away. That weird tower they light up at night. The one that just sits there, all bright and white, on top of a hill.
And that was when I looked around.
It turns out I’m in Greenwich. Well, I say ‘turns out’. I know I am in Greenwich, to be honest. I’ve gone there on purpose, after all. I’ve gone there for a number of reasons, in fact. To see a friend. To have a pint. To have a laugh. And now here I am, next to that big tower, with a sign that I can now read for the very first time. The Royal Observatory. Home to the seventh biggest telescope in the world, pointed deep into space. And home also of one of the most famous lines in the world. The line that divides the planet into east and west. The line that tells you you’re standing on the very Centre of the Earth.
There are tourists everywhere, jumping over the line and back again. Laughing, and taking pictures of each other. I suppose it’s a picture you just have to take, like if you’re in front of the Eiffel Tower, or the Great Wall of China, or a sea monster. The problem is, a small line on a concrete floor in the middle of a park doesn’t look quite as grand. I feel sorry for the tourists who try and impress their friends with their holiday snaps when they get home.
‘Look!’ they’ll say. ‘Here I am standing at the Centre of the Earth!’
They will probably tap the photo excitedly at this point.
‘Oh,’ their friends will say. ‘Because it looks like you’re just standing near a park.’
I lean against a wall, shaking my head at this thought and studying the tourists with pity.
And then I get one of them to take my picture kneeling at the Centre of the Earth. And I go home, very happy indeed.
Back at the flat, I impress my girlfriend by pointing out of the window a lot.
‘That tower there is part of the Royal Observatory,’ I say.
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘You keep telling me that.’
It’s true. I do.
‘It’s where they keep the Centre of the Earth,’ I say. ‘I didn’t know that before, but now I do.’
‘You keep telling me that, as well,’ she says.
‘Yes,’ I say, because once again, she is correct.
There is a pause.
‘Have I shown you the photo of me at the Centre of the Earth?’
And then I remember that I have. Twice.
I found it quite exciting that I could see the Centre of the Earth from my window. It was now the first thing I looked at in the mornings and the last thing I checked at night. I’m not sure why I felt the need to check. It’s not like they’d move the Centre of the Earth somewhere else in the middle of the night – after realising they’d got their sums wrong and it was actually in Kettering. But I loved knowing that, whatever happened, I was close to the centre of things. Close to where everything was balancing. Close to zen. Close to the Centre of the Earth.
And then one night, I made the mistake of looking up.
It was a clear night, and I saw something incredible. Inches away from the perfect circle of the moon, I saw a star. Now, a star isn’t something you’re used to seeing in London – not unless it’s a soap star, or someone from The Bill. When stars get to London, they tend to hide. The lights are too bright, and the sky can’t cope. What should be a pitch-black cloak becomes a dull and dark orange. And as I looked at the star, I realised what millions of other people have realised when looking at stars. We’re tiny. We don’t matter. We’re here for a second and then gone the next. We’re a sneeze in the life of the universe. But … the universe itself – that’s a different story. That’s been here forever. It’ll be here forever. One day, when the earth is just a rumour, the universe is all that will be left.
Mind you, that’s quite a lot.
I felt full of wonder, yet empty and sad too.
So I ate a biscuit and watched an episode of EastEnders. And, after a bit, everything was all right again.
The next day, though, something was still playing on my mind. The photo of me kneeling at the Centre of the Earth had become the image on my computer desktop. I started to wonder how many other people had done something similar with theirs. I searched the internet for images. I found dozens of pictures just like mine. Americans standing on the Centre of the Earth. Poles standing on the Centre of the Earth. Japanese, Swiss, Spanish, Koreans … All of them doing precisely the same thing as me, with the same silly grins on their faces. All of them feeling important. All of them feeling right at the centre of things. And if we’re honest, all of them looking like they’re just standing near a park.
It got me thinking about my nearly deep moment of the night before. My deep moment when I’d considered life, the universe and everything. The Centre of the Earth is nothing compared to the Centre of the Universe. I mean, how many more people would get their photos taken at the Centre of the Universe if they could? How many more tourists would flock there in a second if it was possible? To see where life had first begun? To see the very place that had given birth to everything else in the entire world? In the entire universe?
So I searched the internet for images of the Centre of the Universe … perhaps Neil Armstrong had taken a quick photo of it on his way to the Moon. Maybe the Russians had sent a monkey up there with a camera. But all I found were diagrams, pictures of stars, control rooms, and men with beards pointing at blackboards.
And then I found a sentence that made me realise that searching for images might not quite work: ‘Scientists argue that the universe is actually expanding.’ Now I knew this. Well, I’d heard about it, anyway. But it made me think …
The universe is actually expanding! Getting bigger every second! If that’s true, then it means the centre must be getting further away from us! Or we’re getting further away from it! Further away with every word you read! And if we are getting further away, then the time to leave in order to get there quickly is always right now. Right this minute. Right this moment!
I thought about how long the universe has had to expand and my head nearly popped. It’s had billions and billions of years to expand! Billions and billions of years for the centre to get further and further away! It’s probably miles away already!
there