What Rose did with her blue paste stone necklace (which cost her lover £2 at a car boot sale) on the ferry to a new life
by Sarah Barnett
She tells herself it brings only pain, and throws it overboard, like the other Rose did
in Titanic the movie, whom she’s always wanted to be, so much so that she brags
how her lover sketched her naked (it was photos, leverage), how they’d made love in
a stagecoach (a Ford Fiesta, no consent), how he’d drowned at sea (it was a bath),
and she thinks of him as she watches her knock-off jewel sink below the waves, how
unlike Jack he was and more like nasty Cal, and wonders if anyone will ever find out
she’d held him under.
Originally a journalist and sub-editor, Sarah Barnett’s words have been performed by Short Story Today and Act Your Age Productions. She’s been published in Flashflood, Paragraph Planet, Five Minutes, Retreat West, Inkfish and Free Flash Fiction. She also won Highly Commended in the NFFD microfiction competition 2024.
This story was shortlisted in the May 24 Monthly Micro Competition