UK 005  The Little Match Girl

Um this story is the little match girl story.

Um, it was a very cold night and it was Christmas and New year time. Um this story is set.. ah.. several hundred years ago, and the little match girl was ah without a mother, and live with her father, and one sibling.  And she made money by selling matches.
An,, it was a very cold night, she was out on the streets, without shoes. She had lost one shoe when she tried to run across the road, in front of a horse and carriage and was almost killed. And she made it to the other side but without one of her shoes.
The other shoe she lost when, a street child ran passed and stole it from her. Hoping that one day he might find another shoe that would be useful together with it. 

And the little girl was looking for some where to sit down to avoid the wind, because she hadn’t sold any matches all day and she had no money and she was very tired. So she found a small corner between two houses. She sat down and she pulled her feet in tightly to her body to try to stay warm. But there was no heat there. And the snow was in her hair.

She sat there thinking that it was Christmas and new years’ time and everyone was enjoying themselves except for her. And she looked at her matches that she was trying to sell, and she thought “Maybe if I strike one of these matches, I could find some heat.”
So she struck one of the matches against the the wall and it shone a very very bright light. And when the lights shone against the wall she felt she could see though the wall as if it was a kind of veil. 

And inside the house she could see a table laid out with beautiful cups and plates, and a a roast duck or goose was sitting on the table. She could smell it through the window. It really was something like that inside.

But suddenly the match started to burn out again.And as the light dimmed, the image though the wall became faint. And suddenly it was just a plain wall again.

Then she decided that she would strike the match again to see if she could stif..  st... stay warm a little longer. And when she did so, um she found that... the light was showing on the other side of the wall, a stove a metal stove with ah heat coming from it. And the light flickering in that warm way. But again the match light faded. And she was starting to fade away. So she decided, “Maybe if I strike a whole bunch of matches against the wall, maybe it will last a little bit linger.” So she did. She struck the matches, all of them against the wall. And it burned with a very fierce light. And suddenly  in that light she saw that there was a star falling from the sky. And her old grandmother had told her that when a star falls from the sky someone has died. And their spirit is going to heaven. So she thought “Someone must have just died.”

And then suddenly she found in the light of the matches, the image of her grandmother, standing taller and more beautiful than she could remember her before. And she realized that her grandmother will fade away when the matches stopped burning.

So she asked her grandmother “Please take me with you. Wherever you’re going”
So she and her grandmother both went up into the heavens and were probably united with god. And it was probably the happiest thing that she could remember. However later that morning as down broke, people were walking passed, and they could see that dark ah, shape of that little body against the wall. Where the child had sadly passed away. But they didn’t realize that she was happier than she had ever been before.