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

Even Angels Fall

I had a beautiful singing voice as a boy. For years I sang soprano in the St. Lawrence Church choir, conducted by Mrs. Sullivan the church organist. When I turned twelve and began to struggle with the higher notes, I faked it, lip-synching the words. I faked it for weeks until finally, during an ineffectual rehearsal, Mrs. Sullivan asked me to sing a few lines of “How Great Thou Art.” When she leaned in and I refused to sing, she violently reared her head. Then she pulled me aside and asked if my parents had ever told me about deodorant.

Salvatore Difalco lives in Toronto.

Stardust

Honeybadger