Matchstick Girl

Azar could not remember a time where the sight of fear did not evoke fear in her, nor a time when she could bathe in sunlight. That's why upon seeing them, she wasn't sure if they were hallucinations or products of her fear. Matchsticks, were everywhere, on the few occasions she was outside, they'd be scattered along the street. They made her flinch on every sighting. They made their way into her building, lying on the ground outside the door of her flat, sprinkled around corners. Azar would rush inside, slam the door, lock it and turn out the lights. The same way her mother would after a simple venture to take the bins out, years ago.

Although, taking the bins out was rare, when Azar was a child she was very used to the sight of a garbage filling the living room, where Mother had been too afraid to open the door. The room was always dirty with or without the trash bags, the walls were filthy, covered in dots of mould Azar had mistaken for the wall paper in her early childhood; and the carpet were grey, stained with dirt and cigarette ash. In two corners, were two chairs, Mother's decaying leather seat, and Azar's wooden dining chair where she would be forced to sit all day on weekends or the occasions when it was 'too dangerous' for Azar to go to school. Azar could do nothing in that room but sit. Curtains trapped shut, no words allowed, no game allowed, no light allowed except the repetitive cigarette lighting. Azar would get scolded, for breathing too loud or making the chair squeak, because they would hear her, those outside, they would get them both. Azar would be made to open the curtain for mere seconds to check that there was no one outside the house. Sometimes the only source of light she would get in a day, were the small glimpses out the window to check for threatening strangers.

Mother had the presence of the shadow in the corner of the room, darkness there to haunt Azar. Apart from the common scolding, she completely silent. And when she lit her cigarette, the darkness around her expanded, Azar would wince at the sight of fire.

All the shadow did was remind her that they were coming for them, yet the shadow, was safe for a child who knew no better.

They must have got her, or to her. Into her head. As Azar was forced to set eyes upon the shadow, hanging from the ceiling fan in the living room. Her face was dark, faded, yet the curtains were open, light spilled into the room for the first time in Azar's life, exposing the shadow and vanquishing it.

They lit candles at the funeral. At the small service in the local Church, which accommodated Azar and various relatives she'd never met or heard of. All Azar could do that day was curl up on a pew and quiver at the sight of fire, questioning why candles were lit in the first place. Were they doing this to torture mother? Did they not know that Mother liked the dark, and that the dark was safe? And the light, the fire, was dangerous?

But everybody had assumed that the nervous shaking was from the grief of being taken away from the mother she'd never been separated from before.

Nobody knows what to assume of her now, the neighbour notorious for keeping her curtains shut through all hours of sunlight, the young adult afraid to take her bins out, the weirdo who screeched out her window to the people who had bonfires; who, afterwards curled up on a hard-wooden chair; out of fear the light, the fire, the matchsticks they used to light them. Azar had always been pale but somehow more now, strangers now glared at her in the street, they asked if she was okay, if she was ill or needed help. But none of them could be trusted.

It was only a week before did she start seeing the matchsticks, the wooden splinters threatened her from a distance. But they got closer. From her work place, to her commute home, to waiting outside her flat.
"They're coming for me."
She found herself whispering once, as she leaned back against the front door, trying to prevent anything from entering. Who knows how many of the matchsticks were real, how many she imagined, and how many actually lay in front of her while she attempted to live in the shadows.

But it is clear to say, one matchstick was real. She found it lying by her door, it must of snuck through, in with her mail, or maybe it followed her inside. For a while, she just screamed at it, begging it to leave, but as expected, it laid there, still.

Until, eventually, she picked up it.

With shaky fingers, she examined it in her hand, the wooden terror she never thought she could hold. She wanted to, throw it away, out the window, save herself, yet part of her body begged her to strike it against the table. She obeyed. Maybe if she just lit one, they would leave her alone? 

The sudden an almost shocking action caused Azar to drop the match just as quickly as she lit it.

Then it came for her, starting at her floor, spreading crimson flames across the carpet with a fiery roar, it then moved onto the pile of accumulated rubbish, gone in seconds. It ripped down the curtains next, tearing them away from the window and turning them to ash, adding even more light to the orange room that blinded the shadow. Azar flinched at the lack of darkness, but could do nothing but stand and shiver and let out a serious of hopeless shaky laughs. Flames and tears filled her eyes, filled them with light never witnessed before. Until the flame came for her, and vanquished a shadow once more.