The Matchstick Girl

Most terribly dark it was. The kind of darkness where you can't tell whether your eyes are open or closed.

You had shoes once, at least, you think you did, but they are long gone, and the rock is sharp against your feet.

You strike a match against the wall and suddenly the world is bright; it stings in the dark, but soon enough, you meet the flame’s eyes with your own and the light is warm, a beacon in a world that is still surrounded by darkness.

The flame shows a world of sunshine, and it is almost like you can feel the delicious heat of its rays on your skin. The world is cast in light and you raise your face to meet the sun’s, but as its stare meets yours, everything turns to nothing again.

You feel the absence hit your soul, and it hurts. It hurts so bad that the darkness doubles its weight and when you run fingertips against the wall you can't see your fingers in front of you.

Your hand is shaking when you strike another match against the rock wall.

The light returns and the pain recedes; in the flicker of flames you see a glorious picnic in dazed sunshine. The grass is green beneath your feet, and in front of you, a blanket is spread with food and drink and every sweet you could ever imagine.

But when the darkness falls on you this time, it weighs more than before. It is as if you carry the sky on your shoulders, and you don't think that you can bear its weight any longer.

When the match strikes again the flames bring you back to the picnic and in front of you, people call to each other with voices of joy. A dog bounds toward you with a ball in its mouth, and you can see the sunlight in its eyes, but just as you reach a hand toward it, the light is ripped away, and you touch nothing but cold rock.

The light is tricking you, or the dark is tricking you, and every time they take the other’s place, you think that maybe that is the last time.

Every time, you are wrong.

Still, you strike another match.

A brilliant mountain view, the world stretches out in front of you and the blazing sun shines its light across green valleys and crystal clear mountain lakes, and you think that maybe, just maybe, the light will let you stay.

But you watch as the flame flickers out, until you stare at nothing but the dark.

You follow the feeling of the cave wall against your fingertips and your feet scramble over cold rock. The dark still weighs on you, and every second, you say to yourself, “I can do this no longer” and somehow, every second, you take another step.

You strike another match, because maybe to live in the fleeting light is better than to live in the endless dark; but they are running low, and you don't think you can do without them.

Your hand is in that of a lost lover, and you walk down bright streets and bright voices call from every direction. They brush a kiss over your palm and smile at you with the light of the sun, leading you down the street.

But when the flame flickers out again, the darkness presses harder against your back, and when you fall, it will not let you rise. You sob against the floor, pressed between darknesses.

Still, the matches are gripped in your fingers, and you ache for the sunlight of their face, brighter than anything before it.

You are dangerously low on matches, and you tell yourself to stop, to save them, but there is a small voice that begs for the light, a desire that will never leave you. One hand pinned by darkness, you light another.

Your lover is there again, spinning you in a dance that feels the same as the sunlight, but when the dark returns, you scream your pain to the world, and you think to yourself, that maybe it would be better to burn brighter than the sun, just once.

And you strike the last of the matches all at once and it is so bright, so bright, that you feel their hand in yours and somehow, when they lead you away, you follow.

The darkness no longer rests on your shoulders.