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

Stupid Is

On Victoria Day mama warned me about playing with fireworks in the park. “Just go there and watch,” she said. “But keep your hands in your pockets and don’t touch anything.” At dusk, in the park, people started lighting firecrackers and setting off rockets. When an older kid offered me his mortar, I took it and blithely dropped a rocket in the tube. But the tube exploded in my hand. Afraid mama would beat me for disobeying her, I hid the blistered hand from her for days until it grew so infected the stench betrayed both my cowardice and guile.

Salvatore Difalco writes from Toronto, Canada.

A Step Forward

Lilies