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

Balance

Focused eyes, unblinking, careful like hidden prey. Occasionally sparks leap at him; somehow, they always miss. “Fire is not a toy,” I say, a maxim I’ve imbued in my five-year-old son Oscar. I consider his marshmallow roasting technique: expectant, leaning forward, cautious not to catch his treat aflame as he rolls the stick between his hands like he’s molding spaghetti out of Play-Doh. Then he asks about the cardboard. “I want to burn it!” he cries. “It goes whoosh!” He explodes from his seat, jumps straight up, points his stick skyward, exchanges stabs with gray smoke gripped by a breeze.

Adam Chabot is a teacher, writer, and the English Department Chair at Kents Hill School, a private, independent high school located in central Maine. Find Adam on Twitter @adam_chabot.

Palliative Care

Foggy Dawn