Five Minutes explores five minutes of a life in one hundred words. Five minutes is edited by Susanna Baird, with editorial support from managing editor Maria s. picone, newsletter editor kate meen, and founding reader bobbi lerman, plus our rotating team of guest readers, who you can meet in the latest newsletteR. Five Minutes was founded in October 2020, with the Salem (Mass.)-based writing group Carrot Cake Writers supplying the journal’s first pieces. We’d love to read your five. Submit here

A Wrong Prayer

Mira in love is better than Mira in tears, I realised too late. The prayers I made for a breakup itched like a sore throat. Mira looked like a martyr. She read tragic novels and sang sad songs. I tried to ignore her and watched the blue sky and the horse-shaped clouds. Mira wanted to curse her bad luck. Her losing true love. I wanted to chase red-yellow-pink butterflies and say mean things about mean boys. It was a long, dull summer. Mira promised never to fall in love again. And I promised never to make another prayer this fast.

Marzia Rahman is a Bangladeshi fiction writer who writes flashes in the morning and dreams of flashes at night. Twitter: @MarziaR57167805.

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