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

Double Chocolate

My mother was in the kitchen wringing her hands and pacing. "There’s nothing more that we can do here, ma’am,” one of the paramedics said. I asked if they wanted a slice of cake. “It’s double chocolate,” I said. “It’s my mother’s birthday today.” With a solemn tone, the young paramedic replied, “Thank you, but we’re not allowed to eat on the job.” I wondered how anyone could possibly find out and then, still in shock, I saw my mother sitting at the kitchen table cutting a big slice of cake while my dad lay dead on the bathroom floor.

Julia Abelsohn has been published in The Raven’s Perch, The Mindful Word, The Globe and Mail, Flash Fiction Magazine, Pigeon Review and Retreat West.

Well?

White Angst