All About Salt: A Story

The touch of a former lover’s hand brings back too many vivid memories. The unwelcome introduction to the new girlfriend is salt in wounds that won’t seem to heal. A meditation on loss and trying to let go.

©2016 • 1100 words • ISBN SKU SaltaStory

“Salt” was originally published in The Touch of Her Hand (Naiad Press) under the pen name Laura Adams. Revision copyright ©2016

Cover photograph ©Karin Kallmaker, 2015. Taken at St. John, Bay of Fundy, Nova Scotia.

Excerpt from Salt: A Story

As the water evaporates from my cheeks the salt remains on my skin just as you remain in the deep recesses I cannot clean. I could scrub with soap and the salt would still be there. I scrub your memory with acid and lye and your memory clings ever harder. Salt is, after all, a preservative.

When something is preserved with salt, it’s called “cured.” With so much salt on my skin you’d think I would be. I would be the salt of your earth, but salted earth grows nothing. Salt flats are the purest form of toxic beauty.

You said you loved me and yet you could tell her that we’ve remained friends.