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

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PLOP. The wasp plunges from the heavens into Maria’s glass of cider, right in front of our eyes. After the shock and giggles evaporate, she disappears for a fresh pint while I watch the insect wrestling against its own frothy demise. Aeons seem to pass, then . . . a-HA! I fish out a nail file and catapult the wretch into the air like a cannonball. It lands on the table, soggy and stunned, but soon regains strength to flit thanklessly away before Maria returns. “Oh… where did it go?” she asks, gaping at the pool of fizz left in its wake.

Vicki Leigh is a UK-based writer whose work is featured or shortlisted by Anthology, Comma Press, Fusilli Flash Fiction, and Globe Soup.

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