Where the Ceiling Used to Be

On March 3, 2020, a tornado ripped through Cookeville, Tennessee, at two in the morning, killing nineteen people and shredding entire neighborhoods into matchsticks. One resident described standing in his living room the next morning — except there was no living room anymore. Just a concrete slab, open sky, and his daughter's shoe sitting upright in the mud as if someone had carefully placed it there.…