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

Sycamore

The tree surgeon inspects the trunk. He points to the outgrowths: troublesome. If he prunes it, he says, it’ll be just as tall in two years. Staring across the river to the fields beyond, my heart rate kicks up. I’ve lived with these branches for a quarter of my life. I’ve written beneath them, embraced the sunset through them, buried a beloved cat below them, watched the birds feed on them; golden moments gone with the buzz of a chainsaw. Hope blossoms in an earthenware pot. Plant now, and in another forty years we could be reunited. Worth a shot.

A writer of long and short fiction, plus poetry, MJ Christie has had 100-word drabbles, flash pieces, and two poems published in online magazines. Find MJ online at www.mjchristie.com and on Twitter @M_J_Christie.

Not Guilty

Evening Rounds