Jim Bates

The knocking woke me from a deep sleep. I glanced at the bedside clock. Three AM. I stumbled to the front door and looked out. An apparition was half turned, smoking a cigarette. I could tell it was a guy. He made furtive eye contact with me. I flipped on the porch light illuminating a man dressed in worn camouflage. …

You’d think after being something cool like a Roman gladiator, or majestic like a golden eagle, shape-shifting into a hockey puck would have been a letdown. But we shapeshifters don’t get to call the shots. We have to take what we get and this time I was a hockey puck, an inanimate object with no heart or soul. It was …

Hi. I’m thorium, the 90th element on the periodic chart. I’m a metallic mineral that tarnishes black when exposed to the air. In full disclosure, I’m also slightly radioactive. I’m the forty-first most abundant element in the earth’s crust but I wasn’t discovered until 1828 when a priest found me in the form of a black mineral on Løvøya, an …

Maggie and I were relaxing on the couch watching television. Finally, I couldn’t contain myself any longer and made a big point of clearing my throat as a prelude to what I felt I had to say. In response, she casually glanced at me. I took it as my chance. “You know, Mags,” I said, turning to face her. “I …

She was a poet. She lived alone and often caught her muse by walking the streets of the city she called home. Her friends cautioned her. “You need to watch out, Lily. The creeps are out there. Drug dealers, pimps, and a hundred different kinds of deviants. You’re no match for any of them.” Lily understood. She was a tiny …

A tandem bicycle was the last thing Liz and I bought before she left me for her personal trainer, a muscle-bound guy named Zeke. “I’m never coming back,” she told me as they drove off on his Harley. “Fine!” I yelled after her. “See if I care.” Except, I did care. I missed her a lot; for a while anyway. …

We’d been dating for about a month when Lorrie got a bull snake as a pet and brought it over to my apartment. “Here,” she said, pushing the writhing reptile toward me. “Her name is Julie. Want to hold her?” No. Not on your life. But I liked Lorrie a lot and wanted to make a good impression, so I …

He was standing off to the side of the city Greenway looking at the sky when he felt a tap on his shoulder. “Hey, what are you doing?” Emil turned. It was a policeman on bicycle patrol. “I’m just looking at the clouds, officer,” he said, politely. “That one over there reminds me of a bunny rabbit.” Unimpressed, the cop …

“Hi, Wendell.” I turned my head, tracking the voice past the light blue wall with a seascape print on to the doorway. It was Jared, my dietician. “How are we doing today?” Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a jerk, but I’d been cooped up in the hospital living on their boring food for eleven days and I was sick …

Ignoring the sudden, throbbing pain in her hip, Katie limped to the front of the class. “Kids!” She set her cane aside and motioned to get the second graders’ attention. “Look at this.” ​She held up a glass canning jar with a dragonfly in it and listened to their enthusiastic “Ohhs” and “Ahhs.” ​Jeremy, one of her more inquisitive students …