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\u2019s 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\u00a0from\u00a0town to town now. Our daughter enjoys looking out the window. The scenery constantly changes as much as it remains the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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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\u00a0About Me<\/a>\u00a0page of\u00a0Keith\u2019s website<\/a> states, he is not a Compliance Director, Senior Military Advisor, or plastic surgeon, and did not write \u201cHematomas in Aesthetic Surgery.\u201d Keith is the <\/em>2024\u00a0One Story\u00a0magazine 2024 Adina Talve-Goodman Fellow<\/a>. His work has appeared in\u00a0<\/em>Blue Mesa Review,\u00a0<\/em>Flash Fiction Magazine<\/a>,\u00a0Your Impossible Voice<\/a>,\u00a0Five Minutes One Hundred Words<\/a>,\u00a0The Forge Literary Journal<\/a>,\u00a0Vestal Review<\/a>.\u00a0He has work forthcoming in<\/em>\u00a0Callaloo<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"