Issue Eight

Cover photo by Jeremiah A. Gilbert

Contents

Lucy, Richard Leise
Lady MacBeth in Universe X, Jessica Faulkner
The Living Room and Death, Katrin Arefy
A Story of Every Living Thing, Miah Jeffra
Kojève, Kandinsky, and Existential Beauty, Daniel Barbiero
Modell’s, Kent Kosack
Red Sauce and Notes on a Future Life
Salvo, Chance Freihaut
The Glitz and The Glam, Maggie Armstrong
A Conversation with Maggie Armstrong
Beatnik by the Lee, Jennifer McMahon
Hula Girl, Margaret Dunn
A Road Out of View, H. L. Onstad
European Autofiction: A Sequence, Michal Tallo
A 25th Reunion of Graduates of the Slade-Barnes Academy, Ann Landi
Father With Dog, Amanda Michalopoulou
Socorro, Andrea Lewis

L’Esprit Literary Review || Volume V Issue I

D. W. White, Editor

Jessica Denzer, Editor

MMXXVI

in mediam mentem

Lucy

This is how Lucy thinks of herself: Warily the girl sits on her bed; carefully the girl with the pretty blond hair considers the few numbers in her phone—whether she should trust Amy, if maybe she should text Rich—for every error in judgment upsets everyone, and every lapse in reason ruins everything for days. No antidepressants, no painkillers, no pot, no beer, no liquor, no cigarettes – nothing that excites, revives, or rests her.
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Lady Macbeth in Universe X

In the universe that we call ours, Lady Macbeth is best played by Marion Cotillard. Her depiction is lush and then bare.
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The Living Room and Death

I never really liked her, but I was shocked to hear today that my boss’s wife died. I just saw her three days ago. (At the same time the FIRST GIRLFRIEND reaches out to a plate of cookies, takes one, and eats it. No actual cookies need to be there.)
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The Story of Every Living Thing

tructures—big things—are making me panic lately. Large, beyond-the-size-of-human things that we dwell in, that we swarm inside, that we rely on to stay intact. Made by us.
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Modell’s

If only the team could see Luke now: Jenny naked under him, her clothing a crumpled ball on the dashboard, her body naked and trembling because it’s cold in the back of his Explorer, he feels it too, outside and inside, a numb, creeping dissatisfaction, but mostly he’s thinking about how impressed the team will be that Jenny lost her virginity to a lineman and not Drew the gangly QB or Stefan the halfback who…
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Red Sauce and Notes from a Future Life

In the future, I’ll be naked. I’ll be cooking my own red sauce, peeling garlic, chopping it fine, even though I’m not hungry. I’ll be listening to a death and lamentations song, and it’ll be Leonard Cohen, who does death better than anybody.
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Salvo

They were waiting for the sun to pass the serrated peaks of Kharas Mountain before they would execute me. This is what the priest said. He had come the night before on the National Rail Service.
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The Glitz and the Glam

Margaret and Bram had been on mattresses in Dad’s almost six months when the thing was declared a pandemic but you still had to go to work and everything. Didn’t you? The show must go on, all that. Margaret was of this mind cycling over the bridge into town.
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Cover Photo: Jeremiah A. Gilbert is an award-winning photographer and travel writer. His travels have taken him to over a hundred countries and all seven continents, while his photography has been published internationally and exhibited worldwide. He is the author of four travel books, including Can’t Get Here from There: Fifty Tales of Travel, From Tibet to Egypt: Early Travels After a Late Start, and On to Plan C: A Return to Travel, which documented his return to travel post-COVID and was the first to include his photography. His most recent, Around the World in Eighty Photos, includes images created over twenty years of traveling. Each photo is accompanied with a brief story of how the image was created along with the camera settings used. He can be found on Instagram @jg_travels.

in mediam mentem // issue eight