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

Summertime

He only let me drive the threshing sledge for three minutes, and on the condition that I did it slowly. After I got off, my uncle would take my place and turn it around again, as if on a never ending merry-go-round. The dull cadence of the two mules would give way to a lively trot that would eventually erupt into a spirited gallop. Then my uncle would become the roundup rider in an old Western, corralling amber waves of wheat and straw. Meanwhile, I waited on the shore of that golden sea for my turn to become an adult.

Miguel Ángel Calvo worked for an insurance company for nearly three decades. He is a retiree who dedicates part of his time to writing.


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