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

Los Muertos

My husband made his own snap-in dental plate fangs. He crafted them to match the color of his own, or a customer's, teeth. A master with them, he could smile a fanged smile at you and, an indistinguishable instant later, start speaking with no fangs visible, having stashed them under his tongue. He was pale, gothed up, and fanged as usual when we stopped by Target for some black hair ties. As he stood, mouth hinged slightly open, inspecting the hair care items, a woman gasped "los muertos!" She grasped her child's arm and dragged her, fleeing, terrified.

Mary Ann Honaker is the author of Becoming Persephone (Third Lung Press, 2019). She lives in Beaver, West Virginia. Find Mary Ann at www.maryannhonaker.wordpress.com and on Twitter @MaryAnnHonaker1.

Different Class

Vampire