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

Minivan

Here comes another familiar face. Dang, he's looking this way! So I duck. Again. This might be the third time or fourth. We’re passing them every ten minutes, freaking busybodies, eyes peeled, as if on the lookout for my embarrassing moment. It's not my fault we aren't driving by in a posh Jeep like we used to. Actually it's no one's fault, not even Pa's who sold the Jeep and got this old, creaky and clattering minivan. But wait, who's that down the road? Time to duck! "You embarrassed?" came the withered voice of the man behind the wheel: Pa.

Abdulrahim Jamil is an undergraduate university student who can't get enough of the mystery genre, loves beautiful sunsets and writing short fleeting thoughts.

Set the Scene