Ad Space
“Biggest one yet, I hear”
“Bigger than in twenny-four?”
“Who bought it d’ya think?”
“Must be one of the top-notch ones, just look at the size of it”
On screen, a massive funnel of cloud and debris roared through an Oklahoma village. Viewers gasped and groaned as houses were torn apart, shattering instantly and spiraling into the angry black mouth of the largest tornado in recorded history. The view switched to an edgy-looking reporter. He gulped and plastered on a fake smile. “The tornado-” he yelled, gesturing at the awesome vortex behind him, as if his audience was unaware of the disaster occurring before their eyes “-has generated wind speeds of up to three hundred and ninety miles an hour, making it the most powerful since 2024”
“Told ya” said a shrewish woman “Told ya it was twenny-four”
The reporter staggered slightly and leaned into the gale “The buyer has not yet been confirmed, but there is some speculation that-” His voice cut out, conquered by the approaching fury. After a valiant effort to shout above the wind, the camera switched back to the tornado, somehow looking larger than before. A helicopter was approaching the funnel, even hundreds of feet away it still had difficulty absorbing the gusts of wind. “Is that the buyer?” called the shrewish woman “does anyone see a brand?” The entire crowd leaned forward, trying to make out a distinctive marking on the little red helicopter. Cries of “oh look!” and “there’s another!” resounded. Two more had joined the first. Like gnats buzzing around the head of a giant they hovered, bucking and shivering in the wind, utterly dwarfed by the vast column of swirling air. “I heard,” said a brawny farmer, his face flushed with alcohol and excitement, “I heard that whoever gets this un’ will pull at least ten million viewers. At least.” An old man who had run the place for sixteen years laughed at his naïveté. “This? This’ll never beat the hurricane. The one-” He was drowned out by a harsh “Quiet!” from the shrewish woman. Something was happening. For a drawn-out second they challenged each other. Pilots and vortex eye to eye. Then, with a crack that cut through the tornado’s mighty roar, and a shower of sparks, three projectiles were fired into the heart of the whirlwind. An expectant hush fell over the congregation. “Well?” breathed a nervous man, dressed in a suit that didn’t quite fit his slight frame. He was out of place in the bar, it was a joint for farmers and ranchers, not traveling salesmen. “Just wait,” the brawny farmer grunted in reply “these uns’ take a while to go off.” Nobody spoke. The only sound was the clink of glasses being raised and lowered as watchers drank without taking their eyes from the screen. The silence stretched on, and the drunker among them grew impatient. “Lets go already!” someone called, and with that, the tornado erupted. A brilliant explosion of color ripped through the center of the vortex and spread out for miles. From a distance, it looked like it had gained a multicolored halo. The crowd cheered as more bursts of light detonated and scattered their cargo in huge swathes across the devastated village below, great limbs of gold and blue twisted under the roiling sky, expanding and fluttering into a floating carpet that meandered downward to what was left of peoples lives. “Wonderful!” someone shouted “Great show!” The bartender turned to the nearest customer and began reminiscing about the Miller Lite forest fire of ’19. “That was a good one,” he recalled, smiling at the memory “but this just beats ‘em all! Good show. Good show indeed.”
***
In Oklahoma, a young girl stood alone in the wreckage of her home and looked up at the threatening sky. Coupons. Millions of coupons drifted down like a brightly colored snowfall, softly covering the remains of an entire town, blanketing the destruction with promises of happiness and prosperity. She caught one out of the air, looked at it, and then let it fall, nestled with the others.