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

The Matinee

I love going to the movies, especially as I’m now old enough to go to a Saturday afternoon matinee by myself. The clerk sits in a tiny, claustrophobic office by the door, with a clacky cash register and large roll of paper tickets. She asks, through a circle in the glass window, “How many, Miss?” “One, please,” I say. She hears my voice, just starting to change from clear soprano to a lower, raspier octave, correcting her previous reply with, “I'm sorry, Sir.” I want to answer that she’d gotten it right the first time, but am suddenly rendered speechless.

Shana Aisenberg is a full time musician, music teacher, composer, and writer. She often writes about her lived experience of being trans, non-binary, neurodivergent. shanasongs.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/shana.aisenberg

Freight Train

Kindred