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

Rain

At the theme park, the skies broke open. Everyone ran for cover, clutching bags and cotton candy, watching puddles rise. I stayed. Me—uptight, polished, always avoiding dirt. But something in me cracked with the clouds. I got on the rollercoaster alone. No line. No noise. Just me flying through a storm I didn’t try to avoid. It felt reckless. It felt right. I didn’t care about the mud, the mess, the soaked-through clothes. I didn’t care at all. For that moment alone—I’d do it again. And again. Just to remember I once let go, and it didn’t ruin me.

Asmi Mahajan is a student from India who finds reading and writing extremely cathartic.

Peels & Peals