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

Re-Entry

People, so many people. They brush past me and my child in his wheelchair. Hurrying, scurrying. I try not to recoil. Vulnerable, we have been months tucked up in the cocoon of our home, cloistered away from Covid. The supermarket, its carpark and crowds, have become an alien situation to me. I stand by my car, scanning wildly. “Where is the door? Oh, there it is.” My chest tightens. I suck in air. Gulping and swallowing, I give my shoulders a determined shake. “I can do this.” With sweaty palms, I grasp the handles of the wheelchair and stride forward.

Wendy Taylor lives in rural New Zealand with her family and a variety of animals.

Gift

Corporal