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

The Blush

I take a hit and remember why D.A.R.E. exists. To be fair, it’s more my stupidity trying to impress a girl that has me hunched over and grasping for water, but regardless, why are dab pens so hot? To save myself from toppling over, I make a mental inventory of my state: somewhere between humiliated and over the moon, my lower back hot where her arm curls around it, supporting me. It’s something about the higher temperatures in a vaporizer, she explains. “I know something else that’s hot,” I say. She snorts, and we laugh the night.

Bella Perez is a college student and props artisan getting her BFA in Technical Theatre. When not writing, she enjoys playing video games and sketching.

Whisky & Flames

Call and Answer