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

Dying in Danish

I am convinced I am dying in the bathroom of a coffee chain in Copenhagen. It will be months before I apply the foreignly familiar term “panic attack” to my current experience. At the moment, when my chest is tightening in cardiac-arrest-esque cramps and I’m afraid that I am leaving my body sitting on the toilet in a Danish coffee shop, “dying” seems the more apt term. This was supposed to be a lighthearted trip but in the burning wok pan that is my chest, my heart feels rather heavy. I do not know it yet, but I will live.

Emma Edling Müller is a student writer, raised and based in central Sweden. She still thinks Copenhagen is a beautiful city.

Missed Opportunity

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