Salt and Pepper by Jason Jackson

Shortlisted for the first Lunate 500 competition

“So well executed, so very well executed. It takes great skill to infuse this kind of story, this form of fiction, with the level of pinpoint detailing and narrative energy required to make it more than just a hazy vignette. Crucially, there is just enough left out of Jason’s story to allow the reader space to contribute. A delicate balance but expertly fashioned here.”

Lunate editors

***

You’re telling me how you never saw your mother touch your father, how the first time you realised this you were

sitting in a tree, nine years old, and below you in the park was an older boy who lived up the road, and he was with his girlfriend

—her hair, you say, was black and cut short, like a burnt hayfield—

and his arm was draped around her shoulder, hanging there, and she was leaning into him, and as she turned to kiss his neck she caught sight of you,

smiled,

winked,

and then she pulled his head around, and as she kissed him she kept her eyes open, looking right at you

—right through you—

and you thought about eating dinner with your parents at their separate sides of the table, how the space between the three of you was covered in that pristine white tablecloth

—like a hospital sheet—

and you thought about the salt and the pepper in their dull silver holders, sitting right there in the middle of everything, how one day perhaps your parents might reach out together for the salt without either of them looking up

— and what might happen then.