Twister!

Clouds having given way to sunshine on this June afternoon, a family sits silently together on the sunporch, senses dulled by their recent loss, though noticing the humidity.

Their dad      granddad           husband                lays in the next room, finally. His spirit, evaporating in the heat, adds only more moisture to an environment ripe for rage, catalyzed by the dissonant mourning for this dearly departed thorn bush—untamed, unpruned, vengeful.

Fueled by hot moisture, instability, a life spent at odds with itself, the spirit slowly growing fifty thousand feet into the stratosphere, no longer bound by the limitations of his physical body, a cathartic feedback loop of air molecules—

rising     falling         rage             calm reaching its fever pitch in some proximal field, victim of happenstance, the chaotic wind leaving behind crops blown over and carved into a meandering stream, one final path of destruction left in his wake, dissipating at last— tired, docile, now a suitable offering for the afterlife.

The meteorologist in some distant forecast office not having even noticed this short-lived twister in the middle of Nowhere. They'll keep watching the sweep on their monitors, drinking their coffee, thinking about what to eat tonight for dinner.

Though we out here are left to tidy up this mess, the winds calm and air cool, as we wait to bear the brunt of the next one to die without having fully satisfied the grudge they held against themself all these years.