Because we are trying to get the magazine together in line for an early January publication date, the time for this year’s cover contest will be pretty short. We would like to receive your submissions by next Friday, December 9th, 2011. Submissions sent after that date will still be considered until an appropriate candidate for the cover has been found, but you increase your likelihood of being chosen if you submit sooner rather than later.

We welcome multiple photos per submission, but please keep them to a reasonable number (do not spam us with 12-photo emails), and send each photograph in a separate email to make it easier for us to go through them. Submissions should be sent to the Fiction Editor, Keith Jamieson, at keithjamieson@uchicago.edu.

One additional point: as this is the Winter 2012 issue, preference will be given to photographs that, either in subject matter, theme, or composition, somehow resonate with the idea of “winter”. A broad range of meanings for the term beyond just the season are, however, completely acceptable.

Good luck!

- The Editors

As a reminder, Euphony’s first official meeting of the quarter will be held this coming Thursday, October 6th, at 7:00 pm in the Reynolds Club conference room (019). Hope to see you there!

- The Editors

Fiction pieces should be sent to Keith Jamieson, the Fiction Editor, at keithjamieson@uchicago.edu.

Poetry pieces should be sent to Kirsten Ihns, the Poetry Editor, at alexai@uchicago.edu.

If you emailed anything over the summer break, you should resubmit to one of us, and we will try to get back to you as quickly as possible. New submissions will of course be considered and should also be sent to the above addresses.

Please note that this change is only temporary. Once the Euphony email account is back to normal, all email should again be sent there and not to the fiction and poetry editors. Maintaining a separate account makes it easier for us to organize materials related to the magazine without them becoming lost in personal or academic trivia. After the Euphony account is fixed and a message has been posted here to that effect, submissions sent directly to the editors will no longer be considered for publication.

We are sorry for any inconvenience this has caused, and hope to resolve the problem very soon.

- The Editors

Our first actual meeting of the year will be on Thursday, October 6th in the Reynolds Club conference room (019) at 7 pm. We look forward to seeing all those interested in participating in our magazine then, and best wishes for the new academic year!

- The Editors

He dug up dirt. Once I stabbed
The ground with my knife.
Nicked his ear.

He grew industrious, mowed the lawn
In neat squares, uprooted weeds–wild-
Flowers–built a plywood fort

Under a weathered oak whose branches
I climbed to watch, silent, dead-still.
Papa smiled and patted his burr cut

And called him a diligent boy.
I drew a circle around myself,
Let hair grow down my neck,

And worshiped round wet stones.
Navigating woods by smell of fog,
Watching street lights on the river,

Testing my breath on walks that winter,
I was sure the dead would return.
Shadow that ran across our lawn

And lost itself in the sunset:
I knew it was my mother.
“Just the light,” said my brother.

Drawing his cap gun, he aimed
Straight for the heart.
Mother Earth.

Rob Schultz taught American literature at Western Michigan University and Virginia Commonwealth University before drifting into radio and voice work.  Published first novel, Styll in Love (Van Neste Books) in 1998, which is still in circulation.  Other work has appeared in Prime Mincer, Rattapallax, Slant, Sou’wester, The MacGuffin and West Branch, among others.

All of a single sudden not a soul remains

When we are gone the light is alone

                Paul Eluard

Predawn.

In the city, a factory burned.

Luisa paused, her brush frozen in the air, touching her lashes.

The transportation workers are out on strike; the freeways blockaded.

The capital will be cut off.

From up high, the city was unnaturally still.

She continued applying make up, noticing, perhaps for the second or third time, that the circle of lights around the mirror made tiny rings in her pupils.

Drinking coffee on the balcony, she watched the smoke rise in the distance against the ashen sky. She loved being in the apartment early in the morning when her husband was gone. It gave her sense of calm and readiness for the day. In their room, the bed was already made and her suit lay across the sheets.

Her husband had withdrawn a bundle of dollars, in case the peso devalued, and had put them in the freezer, inside a plastic bag. They never kept much money around the house and since he had left, three days prior, she found herself, again and again, in front of the open freezer, looking at those frozen bills.

She walked back to the balcony and lit a cigarette, another luxury of her husband’s absence. In the distance, a brownish haze hung where the smoke had been. She stubbed her cigarette out in the abalone shell she used for an ashtray, tipping the ashes out afterward and watching them flutter towards the street below.

Today is the last time, she thought to herself. Although later couldn’t recall if she had said it aloud or only mouthed the words. She went back to the kitchen, opened the fridge and looked at the money again. She closed the door, turned the radio off and left.

*

She had been married for seven years. They met in university and were engaged not long after they both graduated. She loved him then, of that she is sure. Maybe she still loved him. He had studied law and she sociology, they met in a class that bridged both disciplines. His family was more conservative than hers but he seemed uninterested in politics and she found this appealing. He liked fun: fun things, nice restaurants, movies and talking. He kidded her but never too much. After university he became a lawyer and then started working for an American company. She took a job in a PR firm and their marriage settled into itself. They moved into a high-rise apartment and talked about starting a family. In the beginning they had sex often  but slowly the frequency tapered off. After the wedding they stopped using condoms but she never got pregnant. This didn’t bother her so much but, although he never brought it up, she could tell it bothered him. He talked about his colleagues’ children in a certain way.

Driving through the back streets of downtown, she was again struck by the unnatural quiet. She waited at an intersection while a man and a young boy pushed a cardboard-filled cart across the street. At a pile of trash they stopped and began sorting out bits of refuse. More and more people were living off recycled cardboard. Luisa watched them for a while and tried to remember the moment that she lost her desires. There must have been a time before, a time when she wanted things, when she dreamed, desired; but only the present hung all around her, an endless, empty present in which she asked for nothing and received nothing in return.

Finally a car came up behind and honked.

She drove on, unhurried.

*

The affair had started a year before the collapse. She met him at a friend’s party, on a rooftop. It was small and they had all just sat around in white plastic chairs drinking wine or coca-cola and talking. Her friend had strung Christmas lights across the patio and they moved in the breeze coming in off the river.

He came late and took an empty chair next to her. He was younger by a few years and charming, in a quiet way. He worked for the center-left party but seemed ambivalent about it. Just a job, he had said, like any other that needs to be done. They talked most of the night. Towards the end of the conversation, when the sky was turning warm grey, he told her about a book he liked, a book by Fabián Casas, and she said she would be interested in reading it. He offered to bring it by her office and, for a moment, his eyes rested on her wedding band. He looked at the ring without expression, then back at her face and the flirtatious smile returned, tugging at the corners of his mouth.  She thought about it and then gave him her office address.

She was surprised when he brought the book a week later, she hadn’t expected him to come. It was dog-eared and coffee stained and she could feel the many creases as she turned it over in her hands. They went out to lunch and pretended as if they were friends or business associates. It was uncomfortable at first, tense even, but after a while the playful flirting returned. He even made a few jokes that made her blush, the blood pounding against her skin. After lunch, he asked to see her again and added afterward, at the very least to get the book back. She said they could meet in a few days and took the book off of the table from where she had set it down. I’m a fast reader, she said, smiling.

Walking back to her office, she bought a pack of cigarettes.

That Friday they met in a bar, in the old part of the city, crowded with tourists. She arrived first, ordered a vodka tonic and waited at a small table towards the back, near the door to the kitchen. He rushed in, looking flustered but relaxed into a comfortable swagger when he walked over to her. His bristles scratched her skin as he kissed her on the cheek. He smelled clean, not of soap but as if he lacked fragrance. This brief moment of intimacy was electrifying. They managed to get through two drinks but the tension between them was palpable. It became a hostility: hostility at the bar for being full of people, at the table for keeping their bodies apart, at the weak pretenses that hung between them.

In his apartment they didn’t make it to his bed but had sex on the floor, in the light spilling from the kitchen. Afterwards, the coolness of the tiles spread against her back as if she were touching them for the first time. They talked for a while and shared a beer from his fridge. They arranged a time to meet again.

The affair continued for a year, in a very pragmatic way. They met every Thursday afternoon, only on Thursdays unless her husband was out of town. They met at his apartment or, occasionally, a cafe nearby. They had sex, often several times. Sometimes he made a late lunch or ran out to get pastries to have with coffee. They talked but never about much. At some point she realized that he was the same as her husband; that he had the same closed indifference. He never asked her to leave her marriage and she never said that she loved him. They met every Thursday and, though he was rough, he was careful not to leave marks on her body. Sometimes, while he was sleeping, she walked through his empty apartment and cried in the kitchen, quietly, so as not to wake him.

*

The city was waking up and she thought about how he dragged his hand across her face while they were having sex, as if trying to rub off her skin. Throngs of people were walking though the streets, some carrying signs. There must be a demonstration today, she thought. Men stood on the street corners watching the people, arms folded or smoking cigars, a few cars, mostly taxis, raced through the intersections.

She arrived at the bank, where she had an appointment, fifteen minutes early and parked in front. The bank building was unnaturally dark, light coming from only a few upstairs offices. A chain and padlock hung around the inside handles of the large glass doors. She knocked anyway, rapping her rings against the glass. A guard came out of the darkness and walked towards the door. He was holding a thin shotgun casually in one hand. Through the tiny crack between the doors she told him she had an appointment. He looked at her as if she was crazy and finally said that no one was there, that she should go home. When she tried to argue he simply receded into the darkness of the building.

She sat in the car for a long time. She must end it. It was all she could think, over and over. She turned on the radio but could not concentrate on the words. It was too fragmentary: more factories closed, banks smashed, streets barricaded. She turned it off; the world felt as discordant as she did. The windows of the car were tinted and the sun caught the dust sweeping through the streets, the air was full of particles.

Everything had fallen to pieces so quickly: the economy, the peso, the country. She couldn’t remember a time when people didn’t talk about the crisis but those days must have existed before: a time when people were happy to spend and spend, lapping up the inexorable wealth, sure that it would last forever.

She tried calling him but the line was busy. She felt that, from the darkness of the bank building, the guard with the shotgun was watching her. She tried calling his office but no one picked up. She started driving, just to move.

Passing through the streets she realized she was heading towards his apartment. It was the logical place to go. She called again and this time he answered. He was distracted; she could hear the television in the background. He spoke in apocalyptic terms and didn’t say why he wasn’t at work. He hung up without a goodbye.

She had always hated his apartment building. It was rustic, South American and yet as artificial and sterile as the modern high-rise she lived in. She hated its inauthenticity, its deceit. She always took the stairs because she couldn’t stand to wait for the elevator.

The door was open and he stood in the living room, remote in hand, watching the big screen TV. On it were images more chaotic than before: people looting a store in the provinces, police firing teargas, images from a helicopter: jerky and pixilated. She closed the door behind her. This is bad, he said, without looking up.

She stared at him, at the side of his face. She felt the familiar feelings: hate and shame and lust. Her lips went dry. They stood like that for what felt like a long time. Finally she said that she couldn’t see him anymore but he didn’t hear or pretended not to. She leaned her back against the wall and said it louder and he turned around. He was framed by the television, a shadow against lines of color. He walked over to her and asked why she would say that. She turned her head to the side and gave the reasons, the ones she had practiced in her mind and the ones she had said before. She didn’t sound convincing and again her cheeks flushed with shame. He grasped her shoulder and looked into her eyes.

Now, of all times, we have to stay together, he said. She shook her head emphatically but also placed her hand on his. He took hold of her other shoulder and kissed her neck. The resistance fell out of her. He bit her neck and she moaned, she struggled and he pushed her against the wall and then she was kissing him, her tongue lapping at the edge of his mouth. His hands up her skirt, pulling her panties off, shredding them against her thighs. And then he was inside her and she was only shoulders and a wall and pounding blood. She bit her lip to stop from crying out and choked. On the screen a tear gas canister arced against the sky. When she came, tears flooded her eyes.

They had been through this ritual before.

This time they sat and drank black coffee on the couch. He touched her legs, he touched her hair; they didn’t say anything. Later he tried to convince her to stay but she wanted to go home. He offered to drive but she refused. They kissed at the door.

*

The streets were still empty. She raced through them, hoping for catastrophe. No car appeared though, not even the police. She thought about leaving both of them; she could get on a plane, if they were still flying, and go to the United States or Spain and then be free of both their deadening silences.

At home Luisa took the ziplock bag out of the freezer and set it on the table. She put her passport next to it and sat and watched the moisture condense on the inside of the bag. She lit a cigarette and turned on the radio.

Two protestors had been shot and the Minister of Finance had resigned. The unemployed were pouring into the capital; people were attacking banks.

Luisa stubbed out the cigarette and walked to the balcony.

Tomorrow there will be a general strike.

From high up, the city looked the same.

Luisa walked inside and thought about putting the money back in the freezer.

Before falling asleep, she remembered she still had her make up on.

She could feel it on her skin.

Michael McCanne is an editor at Lightful Press (lightfulpress.com). He lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

- The Editors

The selected work will grace the cover of our upcoming issue, and the artist will receive a publication credit with Euphony. Take a look at our past issues (links in the above menu) for an idea of what we’ve chosen in the past.

Interested in participating? Submissions accepted until May 11th to euphony@uchicago.edu.

Good luck!

- The Editors

Then turning to the spirit once again,
I said: “Francesca, what you suffer here
melts me to tears of pity and pain.

But tell me: in the time of your sweetest sighs
by what appearances found love the way
to lure you to his perilous paradise?”

-The Inferno, Dante, Canto V, Circle Two

I. Francesca

Paolo threw himself from the window last night, but it might have been the night before or the night before that. It might have been a hundred years ago, and it’s quite likely he’ll do it again tomorrow. Time means so little when the same monotonous moonbeams have streamed through these broken panes for years on end and all I see is night.

He returned inexplicably, and that’s what matters. I woke (who can say how long I slept?) and there he was, sitting across from me. We never share a word, but lacking that mad look, the snarling smile and arch of his brow, this room would lose meaning, the shadows wouldn’t take form, and our story would dissolve.

When I close my eyes, I can see his face—not Paolo’s, but a replica—a round, olive orb, curtained by twisting black locks, his brazen scowl as he crept the corridors before our death, his eyes like flames in the bedroom’s hearth. He clutches a long knife below the blade’s silver glint—his lips a demonic curl—and he springs through heavy wooden doors to catch us off guard.

But how can I tell this story outside of time without confusing myself? I prefer to think of that first night with Paolo, but it’s hard to conjure. If he feels this way, does he suffer as I do?

Paolo, please speak.

If only we could.

*

I remember a luminous day. The sun in my father’s study brings warmth to an otherwise dreary room, its illicit rays casting curious patterns on the walls. I’ve been beckoned here to find my father standing behind a desk opposite Paolo, whose face is framed in shade. Paolo’s the proxy, an intermediary for my marriage, but I think he’s Giovanni, my fiancé, and as he takes a short step forward, I want to marry this handsome man whose muscular arms bulge through that shirt’s soft, fine silk. In that instant, we’re at once beginning to love and finished, and an image strikes me as prophecy: my naked form staggers across the floor toward Paolo’s; a gash separates his neck and shoulders; and I have only enough strength for a few indistinct thoughts before joining him here.

*

I stare at the moon until its phosphorescence drives me mad. I hate the moon, but when it disappears behind heavy clouds, I hurry to the window with a fear that exceeds my hatred. To lose that light would mean losing both Paolo and the memory of our life, and I couldn’t endure that no matter how much I crave an end to this.

*

Paolo and I make love that night beneath the glow of a solitary candle. He steals past the guard he placed outside my tent, and his smooth body moves across mine in long, gentle undulations. His lips nestle on my neck, his fingers gliding against my back. “Francesca,” he whispers—his first words in passion. “Francesca.” We were married that afternoon—he in his brother’s stead—but I want to believe he’s Giovanni, and when I say this name, he doesn’t correct me. In the midst of orgasm, the deception doesn’t matter. As long as Paolo’s nearby, I don’t care that we’re committing a sin.

I still believe we’ll be forgiven, since we couldn’t have known, exhausted beneath that brown canvas canopy we’d set in motion a chain of events that would end only in Giovanni’s far-off castle. While Paolo and I lay entwined, I was betrothed, wed, and killed; I was born to play a part in the peace between my homeland Ravenna and their kingdom of Rimini, a pattern of life and death swirling around me.

*

Outside the window, blue mist surrounds our sharp steep mountain; a lifeless tree with cracked limbs juts from the rocks; and when Paolo jumps, I watch until his body’s black outline disappears. The height reminds me of our castle at Rimini, cold nights in winter, locked as I was by Giovanni in the east wing chamber. I see jealousy in his eyes, lack of trust, and I experience emptiness, separate from Paolo.

*

I have trouble recalling things now. I strain, but it doesn’t do much good. Am I sure we lived? I have vestiges of memory, but this isn’t proof of existence, and I’m left to obsess over the arbitrary importance of events. I can’t even be sure we died, since we’re still here, but perhaps I can find sense in the process of listing facts: Paolo was my lover; Giovanni was my husband; Paolo and Giovanni were brothers… My father, he ruled in Ravenna…

*

Paolo is often away, leading mercenary troops in Romagna. Earlier, I hear Giovanni’s booming voice, admonishing him for a loss in the fields. It quakes the stone walls, and I envision him in front of Paolo, limping back and forth, so close that Paolo can smell his putrid breath, see the rotting teeth and pink lining of throat, the heartless cavity of Giovanni’s chest. When Paolo comes to my chamber later, he weeps in my arms like a child. I hold him and brush the hair from his eyes, but he locks my arms above my head, pulls the dress past my waist, tears my undergarments away, and thrusts me upward. I lean my head into his shoulder and bite his neck, but above our measured breath and stifled cries, I hear a cloth-bound limb scraping the cold floor. I glance past Paolo, and in the darkness, think I see Giovanni’s eyes, but they vanish so quickly I might be mistaken.

It’s possible we understood our deaths weren’t far off. It’s possible that when we saw the first flash of that knife, we surrendered completely.

Giovanni knocks me off the bed, pulls me from the floor, and hits me so hard that I tumble across the room toward the fire. My hair is set ablaze; a gaping crimson wound spreads from my chest; and my left breast hangs in a loose fold as I claw my way toward them, not to stop Giovanni, but to touch Paolo one last time. I stretch my arms, clutching the cracked ground, a slick bloody trail behind me. My fingernails break, and my head lights the room like a torch leading back to my beloved, but Paolo never moves.

Giovanni straddles him, runs a hand across his brother’s face, and in a sharp concise sweep, drags the blade across Paolo’s neck. He goes limp, and as I watch him die, I find myself fading away. I try to think of something I’ve forgotten, something important, but it eludes me. I want to call for help, but I can’t.

*

Was this my life then?

My memory often fails me. A love affair. Marriage and death. A birth somewhere—mine, or possibly, my children’s. I suppose that without time, memory means little, but I try to summon what I was thinking when I died. Maybe it had to do with the moon. I retrace my steps, but all I recover are fragments of ecstasy marred by violence. I wonder what Paolo knows, sitting there, staring out the window. I’d like to ask what we’ve done to deserve this, but we’ve lost more than the will to speak.

II. Paolo

…Nothing else is important.

Below us, there are other levels than this, and near the ground, Giovanni waits for me, covered in ash. He laughs at my weaknesses now, like he laughed at me when we were children, but I’ll put an end to this in the same way I stopped it back then.

Can you hear me, Giovanni?

I’ll put an end to this.

*

We used to hunt in the woods with our father. You and I set traps for foxes, rabbits, and smaller animals, prying open that sharp-toothed jaw where they tripped the mechanism and got caught and killed, but you never suspected that I’d planted one beneath the lush begonias in our garden. When it clamped down on your leg, you cried out, and I ran to our mother with a look of concern so cunning that neither she nor father suspected me. “Giovanni’s hurt,” I cried, and they attributed the accident to one of our enemies. But I’m sure you remember how you lay in bed suffering for months. There was even talk of severing the limb, but in the end, the infection didn’t spread, and it was saved. At first, I didn’t understand why you chose not to expose me, but you were biding your time. You were certain you’d have revenge, and you did. But keep this in mind: Even though you ruled over Rimini, I ruled over you. Your younger brother was always more clever than you were. I took your leg, and later, as adults, I took your wife.

*

Below the mountain, below the mists, there’s a sea that I fall into whenever I plunge through the window. The boiling water envelops me, and my flesh erupts in blisters, but I’ve seen you. You’re in a room, but yours is full of charred embers and dark figures that lash you with red tongues and tear your flesh. The last time I fell, you were peering through a window, laughing despite your punishment, and you whispered one word, a name I somehow heard above the wind rushing past my ears and fierce surge of waves below:

“Francesca…”

I always return from the sea, but never know how. I don’t climb the mountain, and if I tried, I’d likely fall, so there has to be another explanation, but this isn’t important either.

Francesca continues to mock me. She sleeps most nights, but when she’s awake, she stares with such brutal eyes. She blames me for this. It’s my fault we’re here, but that’s of no importance. What matters is you. I’d like to punish you. I’d like to destroy you. I picture myself with a firm grip on your throat. “Breathe,” I’ll hiss. “Breathe if you can.”

I should jump again.

*

My slightest movement provokes Francesca to watch me, and I wonder how she feels when I’m gone. I try to sit as still as possible so I don’t disturb her, but she follows my eyelids as they open and close. Does she think I’m trying to kill myself? I can’t tell her I’m not, can’t say there’s another reason for jumping. When I leap, I try to yell, “Don’t worry, I’ll be back,” but there’s no wind in my lungs. The glass breaks; the shards splinter; and water surrounds me. Then everything runs together: images, sounds, sensations, emotions. Unclear and impossible to understand. The water’s dark at first, and then I close my eyes to keep out the searing heat.

Can I feel my way toward you?

Can I reach dry land if I swim hard enough?

I count my strokes, but the distance is indeterminate. Through my closed eyes, I can sense the light of burning torches, and then I’m lost again in the pitch black eternity of sea. My strokes shorten, grow weak. The water pressure increases as I sink. With my eyes closed, I ask “Is this real? Or am I with Francesca in the room, dreaming?” and I have to keep them closed for fear I might realize I haven’t moved at all. Still I swim, and my muscles strain to carry me further. “Giovanni,” I think, “Giovanni.” I reach out and touch a smooth obsidian surface. I reach out and pull against the water. My muscles strain tight and release. I feel myself rising to the surface, and I pull against the current. If only I could fight against the current. If only I could open my eyes, but I have keep them closed and rest. I have to reach you, Giovanni. I don’t know why, but I do. Nothing else is important…

Weekdays between nine and five, Jason M. Jones edits academic journals in the Philadelphia area. He spends the rest of his time writing stories, some of which have appeared in Potomac Review 47, LIT 19, The MacGuffin, The Pinch, and Gulf Stream. For more, please visit: www.jasonmjones.net