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 Last Oreo

She picked up a lone sock and a jacket in one hand, a crumpled moist tissue paper in the other. She hung the jacket and threw the sock in the washer and the tissue paper in the trash. Pushing a ball with her foot, she bent herself several times, picking up a book, a hat, a paintbrush, and a Lego piece as she zigzagged her way to the playroom. Tossing them inside, she heard her foot crinkle on something; a wrinkled plastic foil Oreo wrapper. Inside it lay one Oreo, broken. Unhesitatingly, she plopped it in her mouth. Fair enough.

Rashmi Bhopi is a creative thinker who loves to capture moments in words, when not attending to her plants and her two children. Instagram: @chaibiscuitstories

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