Prose: “Death Cannot Part Them,” by Maiah Jezek

“Death Cannot Part Them” is the winner of Euphony‘s 2025 prose contest, which has a theme of “Endings.” Ellis shook herself from her tangled bed sheets and rushed to snatch the shrill telephone from its hook. It had been ringing nonstop all morning; savagely disrupting the precious few hours of sleep she’d managed. The only […]

Prose: “The End of Craftsmanship,” by Arthur Mandal

He has been living on the edge of the desert for nearly fourteen years. There is very little to distract him. A truck stop and a gas station, about a mile down the road. A small strip of shops a further mile in the same direction. North of there, nothing for a good four hundred […]

Prose: “Archaeology,” by Ronald Fink

The ceramic Aztec mask on my wall is one of my few physical reminders of a Chilean uncle who died in exile in Mexico City almost two decades ago, two weeks after I informed him of the death of his favorite sister, my mother, some two thousand miles away. The other reminders are fading images […]

Prose: “The Glimmering Woods,” by Richard Jacobs

One unseasonably warm Saturday in late January Val’s phone rang. He picked up the receiver and said an unsuspecting “Hello.” Carrie said, simply, “Hi.” He’d thought she had damned him by now for his silence, his necessary relinquishment. “How are you?” she asked. “Uh . . . well, I think.” He smelled roses, the scent […]

Prose: “Djinns of the River,” by Jordan Gabriel

I came to Imlil to return to myself, to put an end to the nervous estrangement that had taken hold of me in the windless dust of Marrakech. That which cannot be seen nor grasped, and thus cannot be proven, is there nonetheless. I swear it. It’s as if the whole city sucks and exsufflates […]

Prose: “The Storm,” by Grant Gaugash

The old man stood at the edge of the park, the curb meeting the grass behind him, and ran a hand through his graying hair. The place was destroyed. Trees lay toppled onto their sides, dirtied roots bared. Clumps of grass protruded from the earth, pivoted unnaturally towards the sky. Leaves and sawdust and acorns […]

Prose: “Modern Love,” by James O’Meara

She wanted thumbtacked 3 x 5s on her walls, plush carpets, and plenty of space. Long nights and short days, love that could drive her crazy if she let it. Soft whispers in the half-light of morning, tangled up in the sheets of a twin-sized bed, iced coffee and an omelet, shared independence. She wore […]

Prose: “something that knows it’s dead,” by Isabel Yacura

Her body is rotting. Allison knows this, just as she knows the four chambers of the heart—two atria, two ventricles—and how to stitch a simple continuous suture. When she slices open the cadaver, y-shape, petals of flesh blooming underneath her fingers, her advisor praises her steady hands. Beneath her mask, Allison smiles. There was a […]

Prose: “Don’t Be Afraid to Forget,” by Griffin Gudaitis

While I was at Dave’s wake, all I could think about was the last time he got laid. Since graduation, he’d been on three or four dates, but none of them really went anywhere. This thought just cropped up in my mind, not that it brought me any particular joy, but seeing that it wasn’t […]

Prose: “Walter,” by Gary Kimball

The first time I saw Walter he was coming out of building across the street from my office. He looked nervous, the way he swung his head around one way and then the other as he locked the door and hurried up the sidewalk, pushing long, black strands of hair off his face and glancing […]