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

A Smart Future

Margaret Thatcher’s grip on the nation was coming to an end, or so claimed the editorial piece I was reading. The magazine also claimed that telephones would one day be carried in the street and could be used from anywhere for vital communications as well as for accessing essential information. “Chris Tattersall,” called the doctor’s receptionist. Leaving the waiting room, I took a photo of the article on my iPhone 16, posting it to social media and adding a smiley face before quickly replacing the old publication, keen to have my sore finger, diagnosed by Google, confirmed as something alarming.

Chris Tattersall is an NHS research manager living in Pembrokeshire, Wales, UK. He is a flash fiction addict and hosts his own flash fiction website, fusilliwriting.com Twitter: @FusilliW

Manila

Fourth of July