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

Sticky Mail

After work, my toddler and I perform our daily ritual. I hold her in my arms as she works the key into the lock. She coos with joy at the trove of mail, her eyes saucers of delight. As I carry her back to the apartment, she’s busy opening her treasures. When I reach our front door, she holds out her finger. I take the sticky substance and worry she peeled it off the back of a credit card, which she may have dropped along the way. “Sally, where did you get this?” I ask. She points to her nose.

Héctor Hernández is retired. His short stories have appeared or are forth coming in Flash Fiction Magazine, After Dinner Conversation, CaféLit, Bright Flash Literary Review, and Literally Stories.


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