The highways] and byways of Ireland are dangerous places, the roads are wide with a hard shoulder that double as a pedestrian path, really just an excuse to undertake the hazardous business of overtaking the ubiquitous tractor. The further west you travel the more twisty and windy the roads get, hurtling over hump back bridges, leaving your heart behind as the rolling country reveals itself beyond the hedgerows.
A small red car was fighting its way home through inclement weather, just warm enough with a coat, parts for the heater on the lap of a child in the back. That's not really true of course, he was straining between the front seats for some momentary glimpse of the road between sheets of rain and the wipers that squealed across the scene, revealing moments of the journey in white light detail with every roll of thunder.
Padraig turned his head slowly to the boy lost in wonder beside and smiled, flexing his knees gently to take control of the wheel, making great show of the fact he was crossing his arms. The road continued on a gentle bend beneath a spray of branches that obscured the sky for flickering moments. Waiting, like all the best storytellers, waiting, for the audiences full attention.
This wasn't right, father never took his hands from the wheel. He knew the pull of the wheel from guiding another car down some secluded path. Panic set in. We are going to crash! Why does uncle look so calm? We are going to crash in the dark and the rain and I will never get home. All I really want right is to be home, safe from the storm and the fear.
Between cracks of thunder the storyteller begins, the fae of the isle will protect us, timing perfect as we negotiate another impossible corner by knees alone. At night they creep out to paint magnetic stripes down the ever present white lines that man besmirches the landscape with, little tracks that the cars follow home without any intervention, it seems adults are just kidding about driving.