The Little Match Girl

I just had the strangest moment.
I was sat in my living room, reading Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde for my seminar next week, with Emma on the next sofa. We didn't have the telly on, because I was too busy trying to get past the first page of DJMH and Emma was on her laptop, and there was complete silence, except for the washing machine sounding like it was throwing a hissy fit in the kitchen next door.

After triumphantly making it to the second page, I got to half way down the page when i read the following line; "Tramps slouched into the recess and struck matches on the panels". Instantly my mind flashed the image of me, my brother and my sister when we were younger, a lot younger, around 1997, all sat on the 3 beds that were pushed together to create Kage, Fozz's and my bed in the room that is now mine and Kage's. We were all in our pyjamas, and tucked up, with the curtains open and the sky a really pale blue, as if the day was just holding on a little longer than it should. We were being read to by our baby-sitter Kate, who was the daughter of our neighbour from across the road; we had a baby-sitter for a while whilst we were younger, whilst my dad worked the night shift at his job and my mum worked as a barmaid. She was reading to us from our favourite book, the original fairy tales of Hans Christian Anderson, which we always asked for. I know that the original tales probably weren't the nicest things for children to hear, but we've never been a family for normality (To this day the little mermaid for me is still a tale of sorrow and fear, having never seen the Disney version and I don't intend to. I like my fairy tales mean)

The story Kate was reading to us was that of 'The Little Match Girl', and in literally seconds of reading the line from DJMH i blurted out-loud "Oh my god, The Little Match Girl!", by which Emma was very confused. The whole moment that, until now I had forgotten, was as vivid as if i had been sat there again, listening to Kate read. I think the reason the memory is so vivid is because 'The Little Match Girl' was the first ever story I can remember that I cried at after hearing it. The story itself is so beautiful, and not very long at all- if you can find it online I heartily suggest reading it, also, you'll realise why my mind made the connection between that line from DJMH to it. It's one of the most affecting things I've ever read, which I obviously didn't know at the age of 7 whilst first hearing it, but the fact that it's stuck in my head along with such an incredibly vivid image let's me know how much it moved me, and how easily it was impressed into the back of my mind. It's so simple, but so amazingly poetic and emotional.

The whole moment, and how quickly it all happened, was really intense, and literally happened about 20 minutes ago. The memory is still really strong now, and it just strikes me as odd that I can still remember things from over a decade ago, that I never even considered to be of any importance, or any significance at the time. Strange how some things can affect you so subtly, isn't it?

xXx