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

Visionary

My charismatic friend M- writes stories on a camcorder. He grips it between his elbows, switches it on with his chin. He was born without hands; the drug Thalidomide stole them as he somersaulted in his mother’s womb. When we met, I was working as a cashier in a windowless cafeteria and felt like a wilted salad. He ordered a soda. I carried the drink to his wheelchair. He greeted me by raising his camera; it seemed to blaze like a trumpet. “Look what I have!” As we discovered our mutual love of movies, every worry weighing me down disappeared.

K Roberts is a professional non-fiction writer, a published artist and poet, who reads fiction for two literary magazines.

Nonstop Flight

Ghabrahat (Nervous)