We live inside the tornado where our daughter was born. We were driving to the hospital when the tornado howled and my eyes tilted my head skyward. Surely some gigantic spaceship spawned that ear-piercing clatter but I saw nothing until the twirling menace grew in my rearview mirror. Clarissa clutched her throbbing tummy and moaned. The whirlwind whisked us into the sky as the baby’s head crowned. My wife breathed and pushed, breathed and pushed. Roofs, tree limbs, close-mouthed dogs, wide-eyed cats with puffed tails, and other detritus swirled around us as I cut the umbilical cord with my pocketknife and cleaned the mess with paper towels. We travel from town to town now. Our daughter enjoys looking out the window. The scenery constantly changes as much as it remains the same.
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Keith Hood is a former janitor and window cleaner living in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He retired from a job as a field technician for a Michigan electric utility after 32 years avoiding electrocution. As the About Me page of Keith’s website states, he is not a Compliance Director, Senior Military Advisor, or plastic surgeon, and did not write “Hematomas in Aesthetic Surgery.” Keith is the 2024 One Story magazine 2024 Adina Talve-Goodman Fellow. His work has appeared in Blue Mesa Review, Flash Fiction Magazine, Your Impossible Voice, Five Minutes One Hundred Words, The Forge Literary Journal, Vestal Review. He has work forthcoming in Callaloo.