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

Death Song

The cries rise to a crescendo just as the casket is lowered into a pit. A chorus breaks out in lament against a stifling air heavy with the scent of grief. Thunder clouds clash in fury, as though the sky itself were answering prayers. I realize I’m standing above somebody’s grave and last night’s dinner rises in my throat. I make an attempt to swallow, but the song is full of sorrow; it gnaws at me. The funeral band persists despite the pouring rain. It occurs to me that I’ve never attended a silent funeral. Grief can be so loud.

Sukanya Menon is a writer from India. Through her writing, she attempts to explore the surreal, the unexplainable anguish, the deep, dark, and everything in between. Find Sukanya on Twitter @menon_sukanya and on Instagram @sukanyamenon.

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