4307.302 · October 29, 1987 AD
The Wind Had Changed
Some nights you walk into familiar places seeking nothing more than cold beer and quiet, only to discover the air's shifted whilst you weren't paying attention. Young Cody finds the Kingsford Smith Pub exactly as it's always been—worn timber, aviation memorabilia, locals playing chess—except for the stranger at the bar whose eyes carry the same restlessness that's been building in Cody's chest. Recognition arrives before introduction.
October 1987. Nineteen years old with dirt under his nails and the farm's weight riding his shoulders. Cody steers his battered blue ute through Gawler's golden-hour light towards the Kingsford Smith Pub, seeking reprieve from fenceposts and wheat fields that stretch like promises he's not sure he wants to keep.
The pub offers its usual comforts: Alfie behind the bar, Bradbury and Sean hunched over chess, the hum of lives stitched together through conversations and clinking glasses. Local brew tastes like the land—dry paddocks, sun-baked dirt, wind off river gums. Everything he's grown up with, right there in a glass.
But underneath the familiar rhythm sits an itch he can't name. His sister Anne's brave enough to chase bigger things in Adelaide. The farm carries Jennings sweat going back to William and Margaret, every furrow a promise to those before and after. He's proud of it all. Loves it, even.
Yet when the stranger walks in—leather jacket earned through weather and roads, eyes sharp and deliberate, carrying that quiet pull of not quite belonging—their gazes meet across the room. Recognition without introduction. The restlessness in the stranger mirrors what's been building in Cody's chest.
Something's coming. He can feel it in his bones.
