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

Pai Gow


I spent hours, days, weeks playing an online form of poker called Pai Gow. Finally, I was ready. My wife and I drove down to Foxwoods, where I purchased a hundred dollars’ worth of chips and settled in at the Pai Gow table. As the dealer shot me my cards and the play started up, I cooly turn to my wife and explained, “The reason I love this game is—you can’t win too quickly, and you can’t lose too quickly. It’s a very slow, deliberate, methodical process. Watch.” I turned back to the Pai Gow table. My chips were gone.

Jim DeFilippi has written more than 30 books, including his latest thriller Annah Torch: That Gutshot Smile.

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