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 Right Thing

I am a block of marble, heavy and stuck as I watch Melinda throw Becky’s extra-large underwear outside. Night swallows them. Melinda jeers. The crowd of girls titters uneasily. I can stop Melinda; she’s my camp bunkmate. It should be me. Why is my heart pounding so hard and fast, as though I am running, though my feet refuse to move? Sweat pools on my back, but my mouth is dry and won’t open. I need to do the right thing. I don’t do the right thing. It looks so easy in the Afterschool Specials. What is wrong with me? 

Anna Hallett is a writer of real estate marketing/research. She lives in Borrego Springs, California, writing under the blazing sun and shining stars. Find Anna at www.thewritingparty.com and on Instagram @the_writing_party.

The Flood

Better Half