Storytelling for Week 13: One Last Flame

It was a cold night. One of those nights where you could see every breath that you took and your body shivered just trying to gather what little heat it could create. Everybody was trying to stay out of the cold except one little girl. She walked up and down the streets every night, rain or shine. She was a quiet little girl. Everyone always wondered where she came from.

In her cold hands she held a box of matches. The little girl never said a word. It was as if she had already given up hope that anyone was willing to buy a match from her. Nobody offered her any help. They just stared at the quiet little match seller. She continued to walk up and down the streets. It was a wonder how such a little girl was managing to bear the cold weather, with only the slightest chance of anyone buying anything.

She knew that she could not go home. Her family was not the type of family that one wants to go home to. Each night, long after most little girls her age had already gone to bed, she would sneak into her house, hoping that everyone was already asleep. She was lucky for most of the time there would be no one awake in the house. She could sneak into her tiny room and sleep for a couple hours. She made sure that she awoke long before anyone in the house did. If she didn't manage to sneak in unnoticed, she would have to pay the price.

Because she knew that she had to, she continued to walk through the streets, hoping that today was the day that she would finally sell a match. Each day she was disappointed, yet again. On that particular day, the cold was brutal. The little girl was no longer able to feel her hands. She decided that she had to light a match. She cuddled up against a brick wall and lit the match between her fingers. She was able to feel the warmth. It was like nothing she had experienced before. The match went out in no time and so she continued to light the matches. She looked at the wall but it was no longer a wall. She saw beautiful things and even though she knew that this was a sign that she was not doing well, she did not care. She started to feel happier. She felt herself falling and realized that this was probably the end for her but she did not care.

A woman was walking by and noticed the little girl, lying on the pavement, cold to the touch. She picked up the little girl and ran home. She wrapped the little girl in a blanket and the little girl began to stir. She awoke, not quite sure where she was or why. The smile on the woman's face told her that everything was going to be okay. The little girl began to get feeling back into her hands. She relaxed her hand and the last match fell and landed on the ground. The woman picked up the match and struck it until a nice flame was coming off of it. The little girl smiled at the woman and the woman smiled back as she through the match into the fireplace. The little girl knew right then that she had finally found a safe place to be.

Burning Match. Source: Wikimedia Commons

Author's note: My story is based off of The Little Match-Seller. I chose to use this story because it was my favorite out of the unit. It is a story about a little girl who is trying to earn money by selling matches. She knows that she has to sell them or else she would be punished when she got home.She is outside on a freezing day just trying to sell the matches. When she gets too cold, she leans up against a building and lights one of the matches.She begins to see beautiful things on the wall of the building. The wall disappears and she is able to see through it and she sees all these beautiful sights. When her match burns out, all the amazing things go away too and she is stuck looking at the brick wall. She continues to light the matches, one at a time. Each time she does this, she sees all these amazing sights until she sees a shooting star. Her grandmother had taught her that this means that someone is dying. Her grandmother then appears to her and grabs her hand and leads her to heaven. People walk by and see her dead body lying on the sidewalk. I changed the story because I thought that the little girl deserved a happy ending. I kept the majority of the story the same, only changing the ending to where she was saved by a nice woman and brought to live with her.

Bibliography: This story is part of the Andersen Fairy Tales unit.
Story source: Fairy Tales and Stories by Hans Christian Andersen, translated by H. P. Paull (1872).