Free THUGLIT Issue Twelve by Leon Marks, Rob Hart, Justin Porter, Mike Miner, Edward Hagelstein, Kevin Garvey, T. Maxim Simmler, J.J. Sinisi

city is gone, muffled by dense treetops. I stand still, listening for another shot. I hear the strumming of a guitar. I walk toward the music and spot an old man hunched over his strings, sitting beneath an ancient apple tree. Is he deaf? His eyes are closed, his head slowly nodding to his music, safe as if in a dream.
    " Run!" I shout.
    He smiles at his guitar pick, not at me. I study the deep cracks on his face, like fortress walls.
    Another shot, and I hear a groan in the distance. I leap behind a tree and peek out to find the victim. A young man with a blonde crew cut, dressed all in blue, grabs a sapling, like a cane, to steady himself. He looks about thirty, and his sneakers shine bright white as if they're brand new. When his body finally falls, it hits a small wooden sign—a genus, maybe—on the way down. He makes no thudding sound on the grass. I hope he falls softly asleep in his blue pajamas. But they're not pajamas, they're hospital scrubs.  A doctor on his lunch break. Or running errands for his pregnant wife, who sits at home unpacking baby clothes and smiling to God as her husband's heart and brain come to the end of their useful lives under an Acer cappadocicum tree.
     

     
    "I know this is painful," she said this morning, when we found ourselves together in the kitchen.
    " It's unjust."
    " Those words you use."
    " And what about the baby?" I asked.
    " The baby," she said. She avoided eye contact, and tossed her dirty blonde hair to hide part of her face. She had mastered this technique over the years, her way of signaling a desire to change the subject or end the conversation entirely. I usually granted her wish, but not this time.
    " Does it mean nothing to you?" I asked.
    She chose this moment to take a long sip of coffee. This couldn't be the first time she's pondered the question. To conceive a child and then so quickly make love to another man.  Our whole family in bed with a stranger.
    " It's complicated," she said. "I know it's hard. But you can't force things."
    " What about the baby?"
    " I can't think about that right now."
    " You have to. It'll be here, in your arms, in six months. You have to think about it."
    " It's too hard."
    " You've made it that way."
    " Stop with the accusations. I can't take your constant judgment."
    " Have I accused you of something?"
    " It must be so wonderful to have never made a mistake."
    " I've made mistakes."
    " Then why can't you just accept this as mine?"
    " The infidelity?"
    " The marriage! My god, infidelity. Those words."
    " What about the baby?"
    Her mout h hung open, like a marionette. She shifted her eyes to the ceiling, buying time.
    " We have a family, whether you like it or not," I said.
    " That's jumping the gun, isn't it?"
    " No. You're carrying our child. Why don't you get that?"
    " I don't see it that way."
    " You don't see it as our child?"
    " No."
    " So, it's only your child?"
    " There is no child."
    " Call it what you want. It will soon be a baby in your arms."
    " It won't."
    I granted her a moment of silence, which she allowed to last too long, like she was preparing herself to pry open a coffin.
    "There won't be any baby," she said.
    " You sound crazy.  Six months from now—"
    " I had it taken care of."
    I watched as she stirred her coffee with a spoon, which rattled against the ceramic mug.
    "I couldn't bring a baby into this situation. I don't want to cry like this every day for the rest of my life. Don't look at me like that! I was happy when you got home, I really was. But you've changed and it scares me, and if I feel scared in my marriage, what kind of life would that be for my baby? I should have told you, I know. But it was the right thing to do."
                 

     
    It 's been a full minute since I've heard a shot. Sirens blare in the distance. Policemen coming to protect us.  Paramedics coming to save the dying. The guitar music has ceased. I hope the guitarist fell asleep on the grass, far away from death. But I