She Sucks

The tornado is sexy, sultry, a slut. She sucks up everything in her path. Since she was born, since she touched down seven minutes ago, in a midwestern prairie, she has known her purpose: to consume. To get thick and plump and burst with herself. She flicks her tail and swirls her lithe ballerina body toward the nearest town. Mmmm. She sucks a cow from its pasture, moos echoing around her vortex. Its giant body flails, hitting her walls. She wants more, she wants more! A cold wind creeps behind her. She has limited time and she knows it, she knows she has to open her mouth and suck. A little girl with pigtails, a pack of kittens, a field of corn, a schoolyard, a church spire. The tornado sucks and sucks, moving faster and faster, her tail thrashing like an animal. Chipmunks and birds, rats and raccoons, their blood spatters, painting her red. The church spire comes apart, splintering her insides. The tornado gasps from the sensation, titillated, set aflame. She wants flames. But that cold wind, that cold creeping wind. She tries to outrun it, to be hot, hot, hot, sucking up a group of men, pulling them by the neckties. Still she shivers, her spiral losing its mass, cows slipping from her grasp. No! she cries. The tornado cries as her life’s work leaves her, as her body dwindles. She sucks up a mailbox. It drops back down to earth. Please! the tornado cries. She cries blood, she comes apart, cold wind dragging her down. Mommy! she begs the sky, the sky shrouded in clouds. The clouds let her turn to dust, let her settle into the ground, depleted, devastated.

Dead.