The Little Match Bear

{This is in response to a prompt from Tuesday Scribes, run by Michael Jackson.  The task is to write a 100-word “fractured fairy tale”, that is, a familiar fairy tale, turned upside down and inside out. 

Mine plays upon “The Little Match Girl,” by Hans Christian Andersen, in which a poverty-stricken girl, trying to sell matches on the street in the dead of winter, is ignored by passers-by .  Having nowhere to go, she continues to stand out in the cold, and tries to keep herself warm, by lighting each match in turn, and having visions, until her soul is carried off to Heaven by a vision of her grandmother, while her body freezes to death.   Mine is but a pale imitation and invocation, of the work of a master.}

 

The shabby room echoed with emptiness.   Outside, and through the cracks around the window, a cold wind blew.

Propped up, facing the mirror, Theodore sat.  He wore a most serious expression.  As the chill and draft penetrated his matted, golden fur, he contemplated the purple bow around his neck.

His very last bow.

All up and down the promenade, below, people paraded.  Engrossed in Yuletide window-shopping.  Lost in their own worlds.

No one looked up to his window.  No one offered to help him decide.

Brow furrowed, the stuffed bear thought.

“I can’t decide!” he chattered, shivering.

“Does it match?”