Flash, Short Story, Theme Prompt

Salt

Nancy's Notes 🖊️🎶

Written for Violet’s Literary Quote Challenge
where she asks us to include the following line
into our writing: “Life without sinning was like
food without salt; pure but tasteless.” Here’s my
response to Violet’s Literary Quote Challenge.

Image by Me & Copilot

Father Mercer had perfect posture and perfectly pressed vestments. His sermons were meticulous, his prayers pristine. But when Francine walked into the confessional that Saturday, something in him cracked.

“Forgive me, Father,” she whispered through the screen, “for I have not sinned enough.”

She told him about her clinical marriage, her sanitized life, her desperate hunger for something real. Her voice was cotton and warm milk.

He found her afterwards in the empty church. The afternoon light made her hair look opalescent.

She smiled up at him.

He extended his hand. “I want to taste life, Francine” he said, surprising himself.

They met secretly for months …. in hotel rooms that smelled of strangers, in his car parked by the river. She taught him that holiness could be found in sweat and gasping breath, in the arch of her back and the blasphemy of her lips on his neck. He learned that grace wasn’t always gentle.

When it ended …. as it had to …. he returned to the altar. His prayers were no longer perfect. His hands trembled during communion. He had learned that life without sinning was like food without salt; pure but tasteless. Now he could taste things. The wine was wine. The bread was bread. The guilt was his and it was real.

And he was thankful.

NAR©2026

This is “Scarborough Fair” by Simon & Garfunkel

Champagne at Dawn

All text and graphics are copyright for Nancy Richy and are not to be used without permission. NAR©2017-present.

34 thoughts on “Salt”

  3. I’m going to resist the urge to reply with sarcasm and just mention what a gorgeous piece of writing this is, including the many layers of human desires and behavior. Thank you for this share, Nancy. Love the sweet song, too. 💗

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    1. This story certainly elicited a different reaction than I was expecting, although I am always open to discussions of this nature. I have a feeling your “sarcasm” would have fit right in. Thank you for your wonderful comments, as usual, Michele. The Simon & Garfunkel song is gorgeous, isn’t it? I love the way it builds, swells, and unfurls.

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      1. So gorgeous, yes! A lovely listen. 🎵🥰 You’re very welcome and thank you for the reply, writer Nancy. I didn’t read your comments, so forgive me if this is a repeat. My first reaction was, “Bless me father… ”

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  4. Well, he must have amassed about a thousand Hail Marys.
    Sooner or later, the church will have to allow priests to marry or they simply won’t have any at all; it’s already difficult to find them these days and many congregations go without. I learned the other day that if a man is ordained in a priest in another denomination, and marries, he can remain married if he enters the Catholic priesthood. This makes it seem even more ludicrous that one who has not married cannot do so.

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    1. I agree completely. It defies logic. They are clinging to 2000 year old rules which made as little sense then as they do now. Look at the Borgias and Medicis; they both had popes in the family and they were as evil, corrupt and promiscuous as they come. Don’t get me started, my dear friend. We will be talking about this for days! 😆

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    1. Your opinion is the popular one these days, perhaps not with the pope, but certainly with the people. I have felt that way for decades. The hypocrisy runs rampant and is the main reason I am no longer a church-goer. Celibacy is the reason there are so few men entering the priesthood. An unmarried celibate man has no business counseling married couples. The Catholic church needs to take off it’s outdated robes and allow priests to marry and women to enter the priesthood. I was raised Presbyterian and attended a Lutheran school before converting to Roman Catholic. The protestant ministers were all married; they, along with their spouses, were true role models, people we could talk to and who understood our situations. They were not perfect, but they were real. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Christian. This is a subject about which I have much to say.

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      1. You’re welcome, Nancy – couldn’t agree more with you.

        Nominally, I’m Catholic. I haven’t been to Catholic mass in more than 40 years. At the end of the relatively short period I went to mass occasionally, mainly to please my deeply Catholic grandma, I pretty much knew every second word the priest would say next. It all felt so formulaic to me!

        The only thing I really liked (perhaps not shockingly) was listening to the mighty church organ, which always reminded me of Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale.”

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