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

Summer

At night lying naked on my bed, age eleven or twelve, breeze through the window screen cooling on my skin. Branches and leaves moving. Crickets and mosquitoes. Bats clicking. Taking the screen off, climbing outside, feet on rocks lining the house. Lights from passing cars on the road. Crouching, thinking, what if they saw? Stars and moon and shadows. The Whites’ house next door. Wanting to see Mrs. White naked. (Once, me taking care of their cats, she left thigh-high stockings on their bed—why?) Wet backyard grass sticking to ankles. From under trees to open space, running cold and awake.

John Yohe is a fire lookout. Best of the Net nominee times two. Notable Essay list for Best American Essays 2021, 2022, and 2023. www.johnyohe.weebly.com X: @thejohnyohe 

Quarantine D&D

At a Café 2/14