brontide (n.) - the low rumble of distant thunder

The air tastes like heat. It parches her tongue as she crouches in the dust.

The call has gone out and all she can do now is wait with the bundle of blankets in her arms.

Her son's features are lax, his skin soft and pale in the evening light, but he is breathing. Thank god, he is breathing.

In the distance there is a low rumble of thunder. It echoes across the horizon like a trampling stampede.

She is forced to look up, but the sky is clear above the dry eucalypts. The air frozen by drought and the heat of the dying day. Rain would be welcome. It always is.

The rumble doesn't dissipate.

Instead it gains intensity and before she can register the reason why, a great green behemoth of a plane swoops into a hover above her homestead.

Oh my god.

Even she, out in the arid outback, miles from anywhere, knows of the Thunderbirds.

She clutches her son to her chest as the jets holding the craft aloft toss up red dust. It tastes dry at the back of her throat.

A blink and the plane is down. A moment and a man in green and blue is running to her, a stretcher hovering behind him.

Kind words in a deep voice as her little boy is lifted gently from her arms. Deft hands, medical hands, dart over her son. A scanner appears. More words. Reassuring words.

And they are moving.

The sun is blotted out by the massive machine as she follows the man. The shade is cooling. A gloved hand gently takes her arm and leads her onto a green hatchway.

The plane swallows her whole.

Her little boy is strapped in safe.

The seats are red. All that green and the seats are red. The same colour as the stains on her dress.

The sob clogs her throat, but the sound escapes and she is suddenly his sole attention.

His eyes are a warm, warm brown and ever so kind. More words in that deep voice, so soft. Those gloved hands fasten her seatbelt. A hand on her shoulder and she is reassuring him she is okay. She can manage. She holds herself together enough for him to leave her to go to his seat.

The controls on the dash are so many, yet the man plays them like a musical instrument and the great plane roars around her, vibrating beneath her backside and up her spine.

Dust swirls in red clouds and then there is only the blue of the sky.

The briefest of verbal warnings and she is pushed back in her seat, the sheer force of the speed he is achieving moulds her into the red upholstery.

The Thunderbird roars.

The air is vibrating.

The pilot speaks over his radio and Sydney answers. They are banking to the right in a steep enough descent she can see the bridge arching up over the harbour. So fast. Over a thousand kilometres in bare minutes. The thought sticks in her stumbling thought processes.

Her stomach drops as they fall out of the sky.

Time accordions and the plane strikes a hover before lowering softly to the ground. Touchdown is smooth despite the clanking of machinery and the hiss of cooling jets.

The silence is broken by gentle words and those brown eyes are all concern and urgency. He helps her out of her seat.

Her little boy's stretcher undocks from the wall and they return to the hatch. It lowers onto scorched grass.

The smell of burnt greenery.

An arm around her shoulders and he leads her from the hatchway towards a flock of running medical staff.

Her little boy.

Her little boy.

A rush of medical words.

White replaces the blue and the green and suddenly he is gone. She and her son are being ushered towards the maw of the hospital.

Medical words. So many medical words.

She turns to look back and sees him striding back to his Thunderbird.

Steam is rising from its massive engines.

Moments later she hears the rumble of thunder. It echoes amongst the buildings, seeping through the windows and under the doors.

She can no longer see it, but she hears it, rising far above the hospital.

A roar and it fades into the distance.

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