This story is about De Smeltkroes (The Crucible), which opened three doors down, in the middle of a heatwave that had dogs lying flat on their sides and birds walking instead of flying.

Kees looked at the flood of dairy, the broken mop, the defeated Bennie sitting in a puddle of his own inventory. He sighed.

But if you ever go to Eindhoven on a sweltering July afternoon, do yourself a favor: walk right past De Smeltkroes . The line is too long anyway. And the ice cream isn’t cold. It never was.

The freezer units died.

“Don’t just stand there!” Bennie yelled, grabbing a mop. But the mop head had been sitting in a bucket of warm water for a week, and as he swung it, the handle broke. He fell backward into the pistachio-hazelnut swamp, which had now reached ankle depth.