An Invitation

The first week after the launch of Helmarte Personal Care passed in a blur.

No one inside Helmarte Soap Works had expected demand to explode so quickly.

By the third day, emergency shipments were leaving the warehouses before sunrise and returning after sunset. The loading yard never seemed to sleep anymore. Wagons lined the roads outside the factory gates, waiting to be loaded with shampoo, toothpaste, and conditioner. Even the workers who had lived through the original soap boom admitted that this felt different.

Soap had been one product.

This was four.

Inside the headquarters, clerks occupied every available desk. Ledgers were stacked into small mountains, and messengers entered and left the building almost continuously. The distant hiss and clank of the steam engine echoed through the open windows while warehouse supervisors shouted instructions in the yard below.

Ernest sat behind his desk reading another report.

Then another.