Jim Latham

Month: September 2022

  • Pigs, Possums, and Hot Dogs

    It looked like a pig crossed with a possum. Or an extra-snouty armadillo stripped of its shell. The bottom of the hot-dog cart pressed its long, donkey-like ears to its back.  Shifting tones of neon, brake lights, and turn signals washed against its straggly brown fur and its long, rat-like tail as the creature licked […]

  • A Gift from the Mountain

    Daniel couldn’t see the summit, couldn’t see his back trail. He could see wet bunch grass and agave and rain-slicked rocks. Clouds and mist shrouded everything else, including the summit of Mount Tlaloc.  Daniel sighed and turned his feet downhill.  Several steps later, darkness loomed — a wall of rock thrusting upward out of the side of […]

  • Working Loki’s Telescope

    Transcript of Asgard Data Vault Item Access #AI5893–129FJ (Audio) You got that thing turned on this time? Yes, the recorder is on. Please describe the incident that preceded the disappearance of Thor and Loki from this Hall. I already told you what happened. You fucked up the recording and now we’re doing it again. As […]

  • At First Sight

    She runs up the stairs on all fours, the way kids do. She’s one day short of nine years old. Dark blonde hair with pink tips, mismatched socks, and jeans. She sees me and freezes. Our eyes lock. Coincidence, not genetics, that they are the same blue. This kid and I are entirely unknown to […]

  • Used to Be

    The three of us — Elena, Gabby, and me — smile on the side of my coffee cup. Used to be, you could do that: Print pictures on coffee cups. Used to be, you could grow coffee, too. Just Gabby and me on the other side of the cup. In the photo, she’s nine and […]

  • Dramatic Beaver Makes Splash

    The winning photo’s caption read, Dramatic Beaver Makes Splash as Re-wilding Efforts Take Hold, but only because the photo editor couldn’t come up with one involving ‘feather in his cap.’ The beaver wasn’t so much dramatic as sticky. Somehow — sap? — a bluebird feather had stuck to its head, and Revelle Jenkins, an amateur photographer and birdwatcher, had […]