They were in the kitchen. A Saturday, maybe. Nothing special.
Sam sat at the table with a bowl of cereal going soggy and his phone face-down beside it. The kettle clicked off.
Brian was leaning against the counter, half-listening to something on the radio.
Sam said, “You ever heard of Point Nemo?”
Brian looked up. “No. What’s that, a cartoon?”
Sam smiled without looking at him. “No. It’s a real place. Or... not really a place. It’s a point in the ocean, like the farthest spot from any land. Closest humans are the ones on the space station when it passes overhead.”
Brian frowned. “Sounds bleak.”
“Yeah,” Sam said, still smiling. “But kind of amazing, too. Like — if you got there, you’d be the most alone person on Earth.”
Brian poured tea into two mugs. “That your idea of a holiday?”
“Nah,” Sam said. “Just think it’d be cool. Everyone I know’s been everywhere — Bali, Tokyo, Peru, all that. Nobody I know’s been to Point Nemo.”
He picked up his spoon, then paused. “Maybe nobody’s ever been there. Like, really been. It might just be coordinates in a system somewhere.”
Brian passed him a mug. “It’s a weird place to want to go.”
Sam shrugged. “Exactly. That’s why.”
Then he stirred his cereal. “Maybe I’ll go there one day. Be the first - or at least be the first of anyone I know.”
Brian sat down. They didn’t talk about it again.