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

Nonstarter

“I’m telling you,” my wife said, “since you’ll find out eventually.” I looked out the window. February in Southcentral Alaska. It would be dark for hours yet—and bitterly cold. “I used your email,” she said, “to contact a vasectomy-reversal surgeon.” I sipped coffee, asked, “Why?” She shrugged. “Thought it’d be weird to use my email.” I looked out the window again. Snow clung to the birch trees. Nothing moved. “I didn’t mean the email,” I said. She replied, “Isn’t it obvious?” I looked into my empty cup. “No.” A silence was birthed then. It grew for years, until we divorced.

Jim Latham's stories have appeared in 101 Words, Spillwords Press, The Drabble, and elsewhere. Find more stories at Jim's Shorts and find Jim on Twitter @JimLatham15 and Instagram @jim_latham_author.

The Check-In

Family Therapy