Write a story about the unfullfilled love between a pepper mill and a salt shaker.

The pepper mill fell in love with the salt shaker during a power outage.

Until then, he had known her only in the brisk light of meals: a small porcelain thing with blue flowers at her waist, forever being lifted, tilted, set down. But that night, someone placed a candle between them, and the little holes in her silver cap shone like stars.

“You’re staring,” she said.

“I have no choice,” he replied. “I haven’t got a neck.”

She laughed, and a single grain of salt slipped onto the tablecloth.

He treasured it until morning, when someone brushed it away.

They lived on opposite sides of the kitchen table.

Between them lay the ordinary distances: a butter dish, a basket of bread, sometimes an unopened bill. On Sundays, a vase of flowers obscured her entirely, and he spent the afternoon listening for the faint sound of salt shifting inside porcelain.

The pepper mill was tall and dark and made of walnut. He had a brass knob on his head and a grinding mechanism that troubled him in damp weather.

The salt shaker liked his voice.

“You sound as though you mean what you say,” she told him.

“Mostly I’m saying pepper.”

“Yes. But with conviction.”

He loved her blue flowers. He loved the chip beneath her base, which made her lean almost imperceptibly toward him. He loved that she worried about the soup.

“It never asks for anything,” she said. “People just keep putting things into it.”

He had never considered the feelings of soup.

After that, he considered them often.

There were moments when they came close.

A crowded supper pushed them together beside the gravy boat. Once, while clearing crumbs, a hand moved her so near that her cool porcelain touched his wooden side.

Neither spoke.

Afterward, they spoke of nothing else for three nights, though never directly.

“The table was crowded,” he said.

“Very.”

“Hardly room for anyone.”

“No.”

“Were you uncomfortable?”

“No,” she said again.

He turned that answer over inside himself for years.

“Why don’t you tell her?” asked the sugar bowl.

They were alone on the counter while the table was being scrubbed.

“Tell her what?”

The sugar bowl lifted her lid a fraction.

“Oh, don’t be wooden.”

But he was wooden, all the way through except for the parts that hurt.

That evening, he prepared a declaration. It began with My dear and ended with always, and in the middle were several things he had never heard anyone say at dinner.

Before he could speak, the woman of the house picked up the salt shaker.

“Look,” she said. “The crack’s getting worse.”

There had been a crack beneath the blue flowers for some time. The salt shaker had called it a scratch.

The woman emptied her over a bowl, tapped her gently, and carried her away.

The pepper mill’s declaration remained inside him.

The new salt shaker was glass.

She was pleasant and practical, and she never pretended not to notice when he fell silent.

For a while, he asked every returning utensil for news.

The teaspoons had seen nothing. The serving fork thought there might be a box somewhere. The gravy boat said these things happened.

Then, one spring afternoon, the table was moved nearer the window.

There she was.

The old salt shaker stood on the sill, her silver cap gone. Someone had filled her with water and placed three small daisies inside her.

“You look well,” he said.

“So do you.”

There was much to explain. Instead, she told him about the sparrows.

He told her the soup had improved.

Through the summer they talked whenever the window was closed and the house was quiet. Sometimes a breeze bent a daisy toward him, but it never reached the table.

He did not make his declaration.

It seemed a difficult thing to ask her to hear from so far away.

In autumn, someone moved the table back.

On the last evening, before the chairs were carried into place, she called to him.

“Do you remember when we stood beside the gravy boat?”

“Yes.”

“I wasn’t uncomfortable.”

“I remember.”

He waited, hoping there was more.

But a hand closed around him, and he was carried to his place.