Joe DeRouen

Everyone was looking at her, and one of the children, a little boy dressed as a fireman, casually leaned over the table and blew out all four candles on her cake. There was no malice in his face; he was just doing what needed to be done, and the candles, quite simply, needed to be blown out. He was a fireman, after all, and that’s what firemen did. She knew that, knew that he hadn’t meant anything by it, but it still broke her heart.