"Down to a Sunless Sea" is a short story written by Neil Gaiman. He says that it has been performed as a monologue.
A nameless narrator notices a woman straggling by the docks, and has done so for years. She shows them a bone necklace, and tells them how she acquired it. The details are troubling.
Tropes for this short story include:
- Downer Ending: The boy dies via cannibalism when the shipwrecked sailors draw straws and decide he is flesh. When one sailor has enough guilt to confess, he finds out that the boy was his own son, and he walks into the water with his pockets full of stones, Meanwhile, the woman takes to wandering around the docks, to show off the bone necklace to anyone willing to listen to her tale.
- Driven to Suicide: Most sailors can't swim anyway, but the one who was the boy's father walks into sea and seals the deal with stones in his pockets.
- Familial Cannibalism Surprise: The mother of the boy reveals to the sailor who confessed about eating him that he murdered his own child.
- Heel–Face Door-Slam: For what little it's worth, the sailor who confesses to the mother goes to apologize and give her the only bone that was left from the cannibalism. He finds out he ate his own son, and can't live with the guilt.
- No Party Like a Donner Party: The boy died on a lifeboat after a storm, when the other sailors drew straws and decided to eat him. One of these was his own father.
- Rejected Apology: When the only sailor with courage to confess for eating the mother's boy comes to her and gives her the piece of bone, she responds by telling him he ate his own son. It's awesome and terrifying.
- Shoot the Shaggy Dog: We learn the boy went to sea because he wanted to give his mother a fancy house and a better life. The mother advises him against it, because the sea is treacherous. He didn't listen and ran away to join a ship. Just as he was about to arrive home, a storm hit their ship, and he got eaten by a few of the other survivors.
- Tragic Keepsake: Even though it's been years, the mother keeps her son's bone and wears it as a necklace.
- Would Hurt a Child: After a storm shipwrecks their boat, several sailors draw straws and decide to eat the boy. The mother says he was barely a teen.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: As the mother relates, the boy had actually earned some wages and planned to deliver it to his mother. Then the storm hit, and the sailors killed him.
