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

Out in the Wild

Pennies in the fountain reflecting the casino’s lights are incandescent copper. I sit by the water taking in the humans around me, some of them masked. People watching is better than gambling. Soon I’m distracted by the sound of scraped coins on tile. A man is in the pool with water up to his calves, using a squeegee to push hundreds of coins into a plastic bag. People point, shrug, chuckle. Not the wildest thing we’ve ever witnessed, but maybe the oddest since we’ve left our homes. There’s no splash, no trail of puddles as he leaves with stolen wishes.

Victoria Buitron still wears a mask in public. You can find more of her prose at victoriabuitron.com, and find her on Twitter and Instagram @vic_toriawrites.

Liquor Stop

The Red Phone