Wind-trackers

Once a baby tornado crossed our path, torn from its mother’s side. She was a beauty, funnelling her tower of humid air to the cumulous clouds, havoc in her wake. Ed and I burnt rubber in the chase, our instruments winking as she shrieked through Corona County. Her baby swirled beside us, a ten-foot, dancing dervish of air and mortal dust. Just a wind-devil spitting shreds of matter sucked from its mother’s maw. I watched it swell, then suddenly, it died. As if she sensed it, mother swayed. Her funnel lost its grip on ground and sky, her motion gone.

 


This story was shortlisted in the June monthly micro fiction competition.

About the author: Jean Cooper Moran. A flash fiction fan based in a Gloucestershire forest, Jean is a scientist, poet and writer, just self-published her first novel. Her short stories have appeared in anthologies. In 2021 she won the Writers Bureau short story award. She was longlisted in ‘Retreat West’ micro-fiction in 2022. Yay.