Bitter Cold, a little girl wanders into the alley

Tattered, without shoes, her swollen feet blue with chill

Hungry and deathly pale, her golden hair the only warmth available to her

The smell of roast goose wafts into her nose, taunting her aggrieved stomach

She remembers her father

Embittered by poverty, he cast her out after she dropped her match sales into the gutter

A tear freezes on our little match girl's face

Curled into herself, she sees her grandmother in a nearby store window

Her grandmother beckons her into a warm Christmas scene

Roast goose, plums, bright light, a Christmas tree. Her entire family together again

She blinks

Her family melts away, snow clouds her eyes, a star whizzes past into oblivion

"Some one is dying," she thinks remembering her grandmother

"When someone dies a soul is going up to God"

She feels herself being lifted, higher and higher she soars towards her grandmother's opened arms

A smile breaks through her frozen face, she is finally happy

New Year's Day breaks, we return to our little match girl

SILENCE

A single beep breaks the quiet, followed by more

Our match girl awakens, her grandmother leaning over her

She blinks

A tear dissolves on her face, her father's face replacing her grandmother's

A smile quivers to her frostbitten face

She is finally happy