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

Better Half

I sat opposite my wife, but this was not the date I had planned. This had become hostile, confrontational. Marriage was never supposed to be like this, but I had read somewhere that at least one in four marriages go this way. Her latest words to me were angry and irritated. My retorts seemed small and insignificant. I would probably think of better ones once this was all over, when it would be too late. I searched for a response to her latest comeback. Out of nowhere I saw it. D-I-V-O-R-C-E for a Triple Word score. Forty-two points. I won.

Chris Tattersall is a flash fiction addict from West Wales, UK. Find Chris at www.fusilliwriting.com and on Twitter @FusilliW.

The Right Thing

Working from Home