Catching Rainbows
When Scott's had a stressful day, when the hands that grip the controls of Thunderbird 1 are tense and white-knuckled, he is comforted by rainbows.
It started when he was a child. A rainbow landed in their back garden. Fascinated and beguiled, he ran across the rain soaked lawn but was dismayed when the beautiful band of colours retreated at the same speed with which he advanced. He stopped. The rainbow stopped. He ran forward. It eluded him again. And then it began to fade, and all that was left were drops of coloured water in his eyes. Later on, when he told his grandmother about it, she asked if he'd found the pot of gold. Puzzled, he told her there was no pot of gold. She laughed and said there was a pot of gold at the end of every rainbow- you just had to catch the rainbow and no one had managed that yet.
Delighted with that story as he was with the phenomena itself, Scott resolved that one day he would catch a rainbow.
He knows now that he never will catch a rainbow. He knows all about reflection, refraction and dispersion of light, and he has Brains to remind him if he forgets. But he still tries. He still pushes TB1 to her limits in an attempt to snare the shimmering arc that dances enticingly away. He still searches for the legendary pot of gold even though he will never need it. He'd love to rain gold coins down on everyone.
The side of Scott that his family never see is the Scott who loves rainbows. Their vivid familiarity, the hope they represent, the way they arc, cathedral-like, from one edge of the sky to the other. Knowing how they're made makes them no less beautiful and mysterious and almost other worldly.
You can't save everyone. You can't catch rainbows. But Scott will never stop trying.