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

Drought

Depression and Texas heat held me down hard one summer until I discovered a glittering mineral spring in the scrublands. The clear water looked shallow but I jumped anyway, sinking to the bottom where its surprisingly cold depths closed over my hot head as smoothly as a glove, yet infinitely more shocking. I emerged gasping, and smiled. That blue pool is long gone but I remember it the way others might remember frosty beer sliding down a parched throat, or sex with a perfect lover who got away. We all want the salvation we remember, even if it’s gone forever.

Sarah Flick lives and writes in Colorado, specializing in micro fiction.

Healing Potion