Salt water flows through us

She cut her finger and cursed - loudly. "Shit." Fingers bleed and bleed and bleed. She stuck the end of the finger in her mouth and tasted the salt in her blood. "Damn tomato."

It was ironic, really, that she went from slicing a tomato to tasting the red saltiness of her finger as it bled. Ironic because she loved the crunch of freshly ground sea salt against the warm, melting red of a really fresh tomato. Ironic because getting what she wanted was difficult now. So close, and yet so wrong.

She took the finger out of her mouth, washed it, dried it, wrapped it snugly in the anti-bacterial bandaid. She looked at the half-made salad and sighed. She checked on the roast. She listened to the baseball game unfolding on the television downstairs. She looked at the clock. She sighed again.

She ground salt over a wide slice of fresh, fall tomato. As she bit into it, seeds and juice spilled from the corner of her mouth and dripped redly down the side of her chin. She tasted the salt and the sweet and sighed again.