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. 

Refusal

Paul Smith

I must log in to Bluebeam to make comments on the latest construction estimate. Bluebeam refuses to accept my password, which contains a capital letter, small letter, number, and symbol, 8 to 32 characters. I reset it and Bluebeam says, “Sorry, we’ve run into an issue.” I log off and then get back on. That resolves the issue, but I get switched to Microsoft Teams. Teams also refuses my password and says, “More information is required.” Then it says I must update my browser. I refuse, and contact the Project Manager. He is on vacation. So now I am, too.

Paul Smith writes poetry and fiction. He believes brevity is the soul of something he read about once.

Shavasana

Sad Dolls