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

Stardust

Every week Daddy and I would go out together, just the two of us. Mom buttoned me into my best pink dress, a ribbon tied in my hair, and sent us off to the restaurant where a famous pianist was booked. You’re Hearing George Shearing, said the bill. My head filled with the sound of the piano’s vibrations, burnished and bright. The pianist nodded to us and announced, “This is Hoagey Carmichael’s ‘Stardust.’” It was my father’s favorite song. And as we listened I put my smooth hand over his freckled one. “Our song,” he whispered like a secret.

Cheryl Snell's books include fiction and poetry. Recent work appears in The Ilanot Review, Six Sentences, The Drabble, Roi Fainéant Press, and The Cafe Irreal. Find Cheryl at cherylsnell.weebly.com and on Facebook.

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