Too much salt

Sienna played with her food. Her pasta tasted too salty, there was never enough pepper on it. She ground out some more and sniffed at the food so that tiny granules of pepper dust tickled at her nostrils. She tried to see if she could stand the tingle, ignore it and control the temptation to sneeze.
She held herself perfectly upright and waited. She blew a little air out of her nose, snorting like a bull. She was calm and in control of her body. She stared with burning concentration out through the kitchen and down the hall where her husband lay.
She’d pushed him down the stairs earlier.
After the palpitations had stopped and she was no longer shaking, she plucked up enough courage to descend the staircase and see if he was still alive.
When she reached the hallway, taking care to step over his body, Sienna found it difficult to be certain of his state of health. She always had difficulty taking a pulse, so she didn’t bother with that. He may have been breathing, shallowly; all she could be sure of was that he was unconscious. He was definitely unconscious.
It was at that point that she realised she was quite hungry. She thought she may as well prepare some pasta. The pappardelle softened and flowed around in the bubbling water on her stove like seaweed or huge tapeworms.
She strained it before it got too soft, added a tomato sauce and grated mozzarella on top. It smelled delightful, but she couldn’t eat it. Just too salty for Sienna. It was always something with Sienna, she would always be complaining about something, always whingeing and moaning and asking her husband for something. No wonder he got angry with her.
Outside her husband groaned. Sienna sneezed.
Her left hand was shaking a little so she pushed her fork slowly into the skin on her left forearm until the shaking stopped. Then, rising purposefully, she moved around the edge of the kitchen table, passed through the open door and stepped along the hall.
Her husband’s head jerked spasmodically and his hands seemed to be reaching, slowly, for the bottom of the balustrade.
She sneezed again and this time she saw him open his eyes and look right into her.
Time hung around her like a curtain made of bridal silk. She was lost in her life for a moment, lost in her youth and beauty, lost in the words he had said to her.
She remembered every time he touched her.
Then time came crashing down around them both and she peeled her eyes from his, allowing them to rest instead upon the baseball bat they kept by the door: ‘to deal with intruders’.
She didn’t even take the time to think of the best place to hit him, in order to keep his injuries consistent with a tumble down the stairs.
Stifling a sneeze, Sienna just swung away.