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

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I was sitting in the car when the phone rang. The caller I.D. made me pick up. “Mrs. Rule,” he said softly. I laid the phone on the dash as the tears began to run down my face. “I’m sorry. There is nothing to see on your MRI. The pain is idiopathic.” I opened the car door, took a wrong step, fell on the gravel, lay perfectly still. While the news sunk in, my hope sunk into the frozen ground. Vaguely I heard the footsteps of the neighbour running across the street and the doctor saying, “Mrs. Rule? Mrs. Rule?”

Michele Rule is a poet from Kelowna, BC, where she served as city councillor and activist for women’s rights. She now lives with chronic pain. Find Michele on Twitter and Instagram @michelerule.

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