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

Comfort Wear

Today I’m ready to purge my closet. No more excuses. Everything’s crammed in. Too-tight jeans I’ll never fit into, billowing skirts from another decade, snazzy heels I can no longer walk in. It’s about time. But wait. I can’t give away that slightly pilled pullover I bought in Calgary when I visited Joanie. We shopped together, giggling like when we were teens. I finger the soft folds of knitwear, the memories draped on hangers. And spot the ruby red pumps I wore twirling across the dancefloor, floating in the arms of my beloved. Why rush? I’ll get to it tomorrow.

Karen Zey is a CNF writer, a part-time teacher, and a full-time student of life. She loves micromemoir and frothy London Fog tea.

Fur-Som Prison

Arctic Terror