A Little Girl's Smile

The flame of the candle flickered in the darkness of the cold night. Its glow kept wavering at the border of total blackness, brushed by the biting wind that sieved through the slits on the walls. It persevered, for it knew it was the sole reason the place did not fall into pitch darkness. It persisted, for the sake of the little girl sitting close to it.

The little girl was sitting by the old wooden table. Her clothes were barely thick enough to fend off the freezing coldness, and stop her uncontrollable shuddering. But there wasn’t any trace of her plights from her smile.

Sitting opposite the little girl were her parents. The faint candlelight illuminated their faces. But the radiance on their faces was reflected from the their daughter’s happiness. Lurking behind their smile though, were worries about tomorrows. And the sight of the scant food on the table contorted their smile occasionally, whenever they let their guard down.

While the food was barely enough to fill half their stomach, they were never the source of the warmth surrounding the family. The little girl’s beaming smile emanated from her father’s presence at the dinner table. Holding a day job and a night job had hardly given him any chance to share a dinner table with his little girl.

As they sat nibbling the food, their conversation circled around the girl’s studies, her schoolmates, and her friends around the neighbourhood. The little girl’s giggles that punctuated every funny story magically turned the run-down little house into a castle, basking in the spring sunshine, and.exorcised all her parents’ worldly worries from their fortress.

As the candle worked diligently into the night, the little girl was starting to show sign of sleepiness. Whenever she was not watching, her father would reluctantly turn his eyes to his watch, wishing time would tick as slowly as possible before he had to leave for his night job.

The weak candle’s flame kept flickering, refusing to surrender to the callous freezing darkness and the relentless biting wind. It knew it had to keep itself alive long enough for the little girl to capture the memorable night into her recollection.

As the flame danced in the coldness of the night, millions lights outside the little house were flashing in celebration of Christmas …


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