A young boy shaped sand sculptures. His parents combed the beach with a metal detector. When clouds rolled in, mother rose, balancing on the only leg spared in a shark attack.

As he imagined newly acquired wealth for his family, the sea tossed out a bottle. Nestled inside was a folded note.

From Guest Contributor Krystyna Fedosejevs

Krystyna writes poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction. She resides in Alberta, Canada.

There was something about the endless sky, gray and somber, and the ship’s surging through the dark swirling waters of the Atlantic, that prompted Macbeth to worry about the past. The witches. The blood. The trouble that followed. Was there a route to forgiveness? People went down on their knees, didn’t they? Could he hire someone to do it for him? He was still royalty, wasn’t he? But the breeze was so soothing, the trouble, so remote. Surely Scotland was a memory best forgotten. Besides, in the distance, he could almost see, shining like a pardon, the Statue of Liberty.

From Guest Contributor Linda Lowe

Linda Lowe’s stories and poems have appeared in Gone Lawn, Tiny Molecules, Eunoia Review, Misfit Magazine, Six Sentences, and others.

After smoking cigarettes with a few other men in the lounge, I walk onto the deck for some ocean air, and watch the water splash against the Lusitania. I rest my arms against the railing and look out at the great ocean. After taking a deep breath, I notice a ship in the near distance. Other passengers are pointing, and no one seems panicked, but I know. Below I hear a rumble and see something approaching at great speed. A torpedo.

I jump, and when I hit the water, a mental image of my family without me, aches my heart.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

The seas clash between her and the shore. Yer crew lined up on the edge of the beach. Her sails are riddled with holes from cannon fire. Her hull crushed and impaled by other vessels that have crashed beside her. Quite a miracle she can float even now. As yer crew take their final glances, ye walk until the water reaches yer knees as ye recall her the most. Through storms, valleys, and currents. With a staff of flame on yer right hand, ye set her ablaze in a last gaze of glory. She rests in the sea’s foamy waters.

From Guest Contributor Nahum Zewdie

Nahum is a student of general studies in Pikes Peak Community College.

“O ugly ducklings grown into beauty, are ye homesick too?”

Thus I, standing in the shadows of the House of Quasimodo, watching you glide upon these placid waters, O snow-winged sisters of my soul!

“Swans fly south for the winter” You, of whom I first read in the sun-baked plains of my homeland, a world soaked in the scents of masala and mangoes – in this city of eternal Autumn, you have made yourselves a second Spring.

You know not my home, O Daughters of Winter. I know not yours. Yet here the twain shall meet, Once Upon a September.

From Guest Contributor Hibah Shabkhez

Hibah is a writer of the half-yo literary tradition, an erratic language-learning enthusiast, a teacher of French as a foreign language and a happily eccentric blogger from Lahore, Pakistan. Studying life, languages and literature from a comparative perspective across linguistic and cultural boundaries holds a particular fascination for her.

Chatter heightened in a resort restaurant.

It was his sister.

From Guest Contributor Krystyna Fedosejevs

Krystyna writes poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction.