CALLING: LIEBERT, JOHAN
TO: ALL

The snowfall reminds me of a story.

[ a young man can be heard over the network, and as he continues, it's perhaps clear that he's a natural storyteller. while he sounds gentle and calm, there's a distinctively soothing, almost hypnotic quality to his voice. ]

It was terribly cold. Snow was falling fast, and it was almost dark. In the gloom, a poor little girl was walking through the streets. In an old apron, she carried several packages of matches, and she held a box of them in her hand. She had tried to sell them, but no one had bought any from her.

Shivering, she crept along until she reached a corner, where she sat down and drew up her feet. Her small hands were covered with frost. Finally, she drew one match out. It made a warm, bright flame, like a candle, as she held her hands over it, but it gave a strange light. It was so grand that she imagined it to be a great iron stove. How wonderfully the fire burned, and how comfortable it was. She stretched out her feet to warm them too; then the flame went out, the stove vanished, and she had only the remains of the burnt match in her hand.

She lit another. Suddenly, she was sitting under the most beautiful Christmas tree. Thousands of candles burned on the green branches. The girl reached both her hands toward them. Then the match went out. But the Christmas lights ascended. She saw them now as bright stars in the sky. One of them fell down, forming a long line of fire.

"Someone is dying," she thought; her late grandmother, the only person who had loved her, once said that when a star fell down, a soul went up to God.

She rubbed another match against the wall. It became bright again, and in the glow, her grandmother stood clear and shining.

"Grandmother," cried the child. "Take me with you. I know you'll disappear when the match is out, like the warm stove and the Christmas tree did."

Quickly, the poor girl struck the whole bundle of matches; how desperately she wished to keep her grandmother there. And the matches burned with such a glow that it became brighter than daylight. Her grandmother had never looked so lovely. She took the child in her arms, and both of them flew above the Earth, where cold, hunger, and fear did not exist.

But in the corner, leaning against the wall, sat the girl, frozen on the last evening of the old year. The New Year's sun rose upon her. She sat there, stiff and cold, holding the matches, one bundle of which was burnt.

[ a thoughtful pause, indicating the end of the tale. ]

What do you think it means?