Summary

In “The Tornado Auction,” Robert Wurman, a 73-year-old retired Nebraska tornado farmer, arrived at a tornado auction (an auction where “artificially bred, artificially maintained” (117) tornadoes were sold to the farmers that raised them). Wurman's tornadoes were raised for demolition purposes, but he had been retired for 15 years. At the auction, Wurman ran into an old friend, Lemon Guyron, and they chatted before the storms were released for observation and bidding. Wurman, who came to the auction on a whim, was overtaken with desire for one of the tornadoes, and bid on it, despite his friend's protests. He took the storm home and put it in his defunct barn, checking to make sure all of his tornado-tending apparatuses were working properly.

Wurman then recalled the birth of his first daughter (of three), and how he had always felt a paralyzing fear that something...