"Dying Flower" is a flash fiction piece, first published by Sanctuary, Reinhardt University's interdisciplinary arts magazine, Summer 2018.

Ruby had been having the same dream all her life: thin wisps of red wafting in front of her face like underwater flower petals. The dream had become more frequent after her brother indulged her and bought her a crimson chiffon evening gown for her birthday.

They became more frequent still after her family secured passage on a luxury liner to celebrate her brother’s engagement. After boarding the ship they became nearly constant. Ruby had woken in terror every night since the voyage set out, uncertain why the smoothly flowing red petals drifting around her should be so disturbing.

She had been jolted from sleep this very night – not by the dream this time, but by a polite entreaty from a porter at the door who said she should don a life belt, just as a precaution. On an impulse, she had taken the beloved evening gown out the armoire and, carefully folding it, slipped it down into her life belt before following her family up to the decks.

They said it was the fastest ship in the world. They said it was the safest ship in the world. They said it was unsinkable. They said “women and children first.” At fifteen years old, she could qualify as either. Yet here she was, freezing, drowning, sinking into the crushing deep of the icy North Atlantic as the skirts of her crimson evening gown wrapped up around her like the closing petals of a dying flower.