Chapter 14
I was driving. Not like how I had been driving with Dad in St Matthew’s car park, I was driving like I could actually drive, speeding along a motorway, no traffic.
The road stretched straight for miles, lined with towering glass buildings with neon lights. It was like a motorway through the middle of a futuristic Tokyo. At the very end of the road the sun was a vibrant half circle of yellow.
‘Where are we going, Brendan?’ came a voice from the back seat.
I looked in the centre mirror to see Ronan looking back at me in the reflection.
The car had been modified for his every need.
There was a drinking tube above his head that he had just finished sucking pink milk through.
There was a retractable TV screen that was playing an episode of the animated X-Men series, with the bald Professor Xavier in his floating yellow chair.
There were a couple of cooling fans blowing breezes towards Ronan’s face.
It all looked makeshift, as if Ronan and me had done the modifications ourselves.
‘Brendan,’ he said, although his lips didn’t move and the voice sounded like it was coming from a computer, ‘where are we going?’
I looked at him in the mirror again and then straight ahead.
‘See that big bright thing at the end of the road?’
‘The sun?’
‘Yes, Ronan, the sun, we’re going towards that.’
‘What happens when we get there? Will we not just burn up or something?’
‘No, Ronan, we’re only going towards it, we won’t get too close, and then we’ll drive around it.’
‘To get to the other side?’
‘Said the chicken.’
‘What?’
‘To get to the other side; why the chicken crossed the road.’
‘Roast chicken.’
‘What?’
‘If he got to the other side of the sun he’d be a roasted chicken, wouldn’t he?’
‘Ha, oh right, yeah he would but we won’t.’
‘What will we be, Brendan?’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘we’ll be on the other side and we’ll take it from there.’
‘Will it be colder there?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Will it be darker?’
‘I don’t know.’
There was silence.
‘Will I be able to walk there?’
I drove.
‘Will I be able to, Brendan? Will I be able to run?’
I just drove.
‘Will I be able to talk there, Brendan?’
I kept driving.
‘Ronan,’ I said, ‘on the other side of the sun, I don’t even know if there’s a road.’