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

Working from Home

I made it through another day working from home. I sneak the empty beer cans out to the recycling bin; lifting up some cardboard and the worst drawings the kids made, I hide the cans, evidence I'm not doing as well as it seems. I sense eyes upon me. We got a taller fence, put up for more privacy, but now my neighbour is going the extra mile to be nosy, looking down from the top window instead of the lower one. Still the same judgemental expression. I wonder how many days she’s been watching, and whether she'll say anything.

Andrew Anderson (he/him) is a writer from Bathgate, Scotland. Find Andrew on Twitter @soorploom.

Better Half

God Hates Me