Don’t tell

fiction by Tim Chapman When the police arrive you tell them you were coming from the kitchen with a big bowl of popcorn when you heard the blast. You tell them you dropped the bowl and ran. You saw the bowl bounce, scattering its fluffy contents in a semicircle across the hardwood floor. The pattern of blood, bone, and tissue on the bedroom wall is semicircular as well. You tell them the shotgun had reduced your husband’s head to a nightmare and that you vomited as soon as you saw it. You sit on the living room couch while the detectives move in and out of the bedroom. You show them the stash of pills you found under a chair cushion. Edgar had stopped taking his medication, you tell them. He was hiding it. You see them dust the shotgun for finge