cooled

hello, readers & writers, happy wednesday eve (or thursday morning)! i'd like to see what you writers make of the photo. poem, short story or creative non-fiction, click on comments below to share. here's my fiction spin on it.

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Work in the candle shop was hell in the summers. The crowds. The overwhelming smell of the perfume we add to the hot wax. The heat. The friggin' heat. Try taking July heat in Texas and adding six stoves firing at 400 degree heat to it. But you learn to drink your waters and take your breaks, and the boss moved our shifts to start in the early morning hours. But winters, they were nice. When the air was thin with chill and the few customers in the square were so happy to come in and get warm, and maybe buy a holiday gift or two. I liked it. No matter that my hands were calloused from the heat that soaked through my gloves; the warmth of the stoves filled up the back kitchen and spilled out the open windows and doors. Passers by smiled when they walked by, and sometimes poked their heads in to see what we were doing. Yep, you couldn't beat winter at the candle shop. 

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