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

Escapade

We reached the roof of the school unnoticed. Maggie was an expert at planning adventures and I didn't want to show her that I wasn't as fearless as she was. "In five minutes we have to go back to the classroom," she told me, while she tried to light the cigarette against the wind. We alternated our drags, laughing as if we were smoking marijuana. She was so beautiful that it hurt. I desperately wanted to kiss her with my inexperienced, thirteen-year-old mouth. She caused that effect on the boys. Those were the most intense five minutes of my youth.

Marcelo Medone (b. Buenos Aires 1961) is a fiction writer, poet and screenwriter. His works have been published in more than 40 countries, including the US. He has been nominated for the 2021 Pushcart Prize. Find Marcelo on Instagram @marcelomedone.

The Slap

A Dying Art