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 and founding reader bobbi lerman; May READERS Darcy alsop, PRERNA BAROOAH, AMITA BASU, Sarina Caragan, Antony Püttschneider, and Elisa Rivera; and May Editorial intern sienna lew. 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

Await

Nervousness washes over me as I wait with bated breath to see if meeting him after half a year will make my heart skip a beat. It’s 10:50 a.m. on what otherwise would have been a usual work-dominated Monday morning, and I find myself slowly running out of patience as I wait for him at a deserted metro station. The occasional sound of the fast-moving trains chasing each other slashes through the silence of the station. My hands shiver, my heart races inexplicably, and I stand there, staring at the staircase, waiting to lock my eyes with his.

Isha Sharma lives in Delhi, India. When not writing, she can be found snuggled up in a blanket rewatching The Office or re-reading her favorite novels. Find Isha on Medium and Instagram @hogwartsalumna, and on Twitter @BeyondEllipses.

Dying in Danish

Waxing Crescent