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

Tent Boy

“I rolled a six.” “Okay,” says the GM, “you get a tent.” While the rest of the party rolls their equipment, I struggle to find out what my character could even do with a tent. “Wear it,” a friend says. Thus came my favorite superhero: Tent Boy. Tent Boy is silly, because his world is scary. He’s bad at his job. He’s lucky. In the game we’re playing, players expect their characters to die. Tent Boy, despite fire-slinging goblins, lives to the end. Tent Boy doesn’t run away from trouble. He says, “So what? I’m Tent Boy.” Somehow, it works.

Dylon Medeiros is a college student. He loves fiction and food. Fantasy and cheesesteaks are his favorites.

Saved

The Siren