The Soothsayer - Sulfursticks

The winter was the worst in that decade.

Everything was frozen.

The small Danish town was caked entirely in snow. It was New Year's Eve.

While the few of its citizens remained in the city square, they were on their way home. In thick furs and vastly coats.

A Danish soothsayer trembled in the climate in his torn rags.

He was once called Eilert. But names were for civilized people and not for social outcast like him.

The town spit on him.

Because all Eilert did for the past two years, in each day of his life was to carry a signboard in the city square.

It said, 'Redeem Yourself, The Doom Is Nigh!'

All Eilert ever did was to warn people.

And he forgotten the times he was beaten up by the town folks.

As the blizzard rolled about, Eilert was confident his warning was materialising. He brought his signboard up high.

It all started two years ago when Eilert had a dream. God came through and made him the prophet.

The winter continued.

Eilert thought about his little friend. He never knew her name or spoken to her before.

She peddled boxes of cheap sulfursticks in the city square.

She was all bones in her dirty shawl and she was just a child. Eilert wondered if she had a name.

The cold storm became greater as it snowed harder and soon the city square was blind. Eilert held his signboard of doom across his chest tightly as he struggled to move into shade.

In the nook of two buildings, he seek shelter.

And there Eilert saw the little match girl.

And he saw the marvellous things that she performed.

Trying to warm herself, the little match girl decided to strike the sulfursticks.

She lit the first match and she saw a hot iron stove in the mist of the air.

Eilert's eyes grew wide.

The match flame was blown away and the iron stove vanished.

Encouraged, the little match girl lit the second sulfurstick and they saw a fully laden dinner table with delicious foods and a roasted goose that
came slowly toward her. It too disappeared as the match went out.

At the struck of the third match, she saw a beautiful Christmas tree lit with a million candles. The candle lights went higher and higher until they became stars.

In the corner, Eilert almost wanted to call her. And he wished he did.

Because upon the fourth struck of the sulfurstick, the match girl saw her grandmother and cried out loud.

Her cries were long and weary. It was pregnant too long in her tiny heart, and her whimpers called out to the injustice of God in treatment of His little children made to peddler stuffs to strangers, without shoes, without food and without mercy.

The little match girl finished her cry and collapsed in the snow.

Eilert rushed over to find her dead.

She had died with a happy smile on her lips, knowing she would be forever safe in her grandmother's arms and away from this cold dark world.

Eilert saw that there was still a box of sulfursticks in her peddling basket.

He looked around to see if anyone witnessed them.

Blowing a mist of frozen air, Eilert took out a sulfurstick with his shaking fingers.

Eilert the soothsayer struck a match.

And they came just like his dream. Like like God intended. He saw the world in its ruins, fires and floods, the coming of the Apocalypse.

He was right. They were wrong. The end was nigh! Then the wind blew the flame off, killing his vision.

Eilert knew that he would end up like the little match girl if he continued to strike the matches.

But he wanted the visions to go on.

Forever.

Maybe he was thinking too much, maybe he wasn't thinking at all.

Eilert the Danish soothsayer devoured the box of sulfursticks in one swallow.



To be continued...