Dana wasn’t allowed to walk the beach alone, even in broad daylight. Her parents never gave a reason, but she’d heard them whispering about the men who lived in the sea.

When the sea men came for her, Dana did not scream. Perhaps this was what she wanted all along. She would not miss her family. She would not miss the earth.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Andrea says.

We clasp hands. I see the doubt and jump off the cliff.

From Guest Contributor Neroli Ladner

A tooth broke off a sprocket of a bicycle once. It made a small chinking noise hitting the street but the rider kept riding.

But being a bicycle when you’re just a sprocket tooth is harder than it looks. A storm came and swept the tooth into a storm drain; it was lost forever. That bike never ran as smoothly.

From Guest Contributor Henry Eutaw

Rob drove down the back road at excessive amounts of speed. After losing his job, his fiancée, Felicia, broke off their engagement. He swerved into the next lane and an oncoming car approached.

Could Rob’s life get any worse?

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Scott stared at the blank screen and pondered how to begin his obituary. Prone to bouts of depression, solitude, and introspection, Scott Beeker lived a quiet life filled with anger, passion, and, most importantly, love. Yes, that sounded nice, he thought. During the final years of his life he traveled the country in search of romance and adventure. He found both one night last May in the basement of a restaurant in downtown Los Angeles. There was so much to tell, wasn’t there? So many stories that were more interesting than he’d first thought. If only there was more time.

From Guest Contributor Dan Slaten

We’d barely set down our suitcases when Vic said he wanted to leave. “Let’s wait for a Howard Johnson. This place is a dump. Look, cockroaches!”

“Don’t be stupid,” he said. “Roaches are roaches.”

From Guest Contributor Brook Bhagat

Brook’s nonfiction, poetry, and fiction have appeared or are forthcoming in dozens of publications, including Little India, Outpost, Nowhere Poetry, The Syzygy Poetry Journal, and Rat’s Ass Review, and she is the co-owner and chief editor of BluePlanetJournal.com. She holds a B.A. from Vassar College and an MFA from Lindenwood University and teaches creative writing at a community college. She has completed a full-length hybrid manuscript and is writing a novel.

Six nuclear bombs head for Russia. A short time later the world’s arsenal is launched. Life on the planet changed overnight.

Afterwards Jon and Julie become best friends. Months later, Jon tells her his secret. “Those six nuclear warheads, they weren’t bombs, that was me,” says Jon.

From Guest Contributor Denny E. Marshall

Dreams projected on a ceiling from a restless mind. A vision of a better tomorrow plays from the imagination onto the stucco. With pleading hope for happiness to join the rising sun, the reality of sadness can be temporarily cast aside. Muscles relax and the burden lessens with the promise. Eyes close and colors dance a firefly ballet on the back of eyelids. Fantasies and nightmares disturb the slumber but recede with the buzz of an alarm clock. Golden rays of butterscotch pour through the glass and warm the face. I rise, we all rise… with hope in our hearts.

From Guest Contributor Jordan Altman

“It’s only been eleven months,” said the other woman afterwards.

“Next time? My libido’s semi-retired. So I think it’d be more like us both coming home from work, and just drinking wine together at day’s end.”

From Guest Contributor Gerald Kamens

It had been three years since Lea admitted her mother into the nursing home for Alzheimer patients. Sometimes she knew Lea and sometimes she was just a stranger visiting.

It wasn’t Lea she spoke of.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher