St. Michael and the Little Match Girl

(work in progress, revision suggestions and anything that doesn't work is helpful to me, thanks)
(also if you know me, i apologize for being corny and obvious. i can't help it.)


The Little Match Girl met St. Michael the day after Michaelmas, walking outside the high school.
"I saw you in the newspaper," she said with unusual boldness. "You were wearing a robe and crown. It seemed pretty important."
St. Michael looked down from under a thick mane of orange hair and smiled at her with his eyes. They walked together, kicking through autumn leaves, delighting in new conversation.

=

The sweet summer air came in through the open window; it was the last day of June and she was going to have a picnic with St. Michael. She stood barefoot in the kitchen, making two salami sandwiches and wrapping them in wax paper. She wore a t-shirt with a skirt that she had made from her father's old work shirts. Her feet had scars and blisters from breaking in her rubber sandals. A black cat stepped around her legs as she finished the sandwiches.
"Okay, cat. Wish me luck and don't wreck the house while I'm out."
The cat responded with a blank look that made The Little Match Girl smile.

=

They sat together during a school assembly, and St. Michael told The Little Match Girl that he liked her ears. She told him he had a nice nose. He put his hand on the thigh of her red tights. She crossed her legs, catching his hand like a Venus fly trap and laughed when he blushed.
"You should wear skirts more often," he said, touching the hem of her denim skirt. "You look cute as hell."
"I have a new white one from Goodwill, I just don't have the nerve to wear it," she said.
"Wear it on Monday," he suggested. "Then I can come up to your chemistry class and throw you on Mr. Turner's desk and make love to you in front of the class. It'll be great."
"All right then, let's do it." She laughed again and a teacher shot them a warning glance.
The Little Match Girl wore the skirt on Monday; a white slip showed sloppily from underneath. St. Michael came to her class and smiled when he saw the skirt, but of course they never made love: he was a saint and she was just a child.

=

The Little Match Girl put the sandwiches in a bag and drove to St. Michael's house. The car was an oven and she gripped the steering wheel until she was used to the burning. A lock of short brown hair stuck to her forehead, glossy with sweat. At St. Michael's house she stood on the doormat and rang the bell. He opened it, wearing a white T-shirt that was loose at the collar and showed his pale skin beneath it. They drove to the park and she drummed on the streering wheel while St. Michael did the air guitar solo.

=

In the early spring they went shopping together. They took St. Michael's car, a white sedan with a checkerboard roof and teeth painted around the wheels and a broken odometer. They went to the comic book store and rummaged through the box of used action figures. St. Michael talked about heroes and how all boys want to be one.
"Boys are more likely to think it's cool to get hit by a car because they were saving somebody's life," he said.
"That's a bullshit statistic," said the girl. "I think it's dramatic and romantic, and I'm not a boy."
"Yeah, he said,"But you're manic depressive, that doesn't count."
The Little Match Girl frowned and bit her lip but didn't reply.
Later, in the pet store, they looked at rows of fish tanks and tarantulas and ferrets. They talked about Tom Waits and fingerprints and whether it is a sin to love your mother more than you love God.

=

At the park, they walked across a covered bridge over a small polluted river, down a path and sat down at a picnic table, avoiding the mulberry stains and spots of bird shit. Far on the other end of the park, they could hear the faint happy voices of a group of kids playing frisbee.
"Do you ever wonder," said The Little Match Girl through a mouthful of salami sandwich, "If Homer had a bunch of wannabe epic poets following him around? Maybe he was the most mainstream epic poet and there was a whole counterculture of epic poetry, they just didn't care about posterity as much as Homer and his people."
"I can't say that I've ever wondered that," he said, bemused. He thought for a moment. "Posterity and posteriors, I bet. All poets are just trying to get some."

=

The next Michaelmas was unseasonably cold. After class, they walked quickly toward the school doors. The Little Match Girl tried to hide the fact that she was about to cry. St. Michael held open the middle door for her, but she went through the left. He looked like he had been slapped.
"Have fun this weekend," she said in a choked voice as she approached her car. "Don't worry about me, just pretend I don't exist. You're pretty good at that." She got in and turned on the engine, but St. Michael stood at the side of the car, hoping she wasn't upset enough to run over his foot. He motioned for her to roll down the window which she did, reluctantly. There was no point in hiding the tears now; The Little Match Girl sat and cried pathetically while St. Michael knelt outside her window. He leaned his head into the car and lightly kissed her neck below the ear. She shrugged him away, rolled up the window and drove off.

=

St. Michael and The Little Match Girl ate their sandwiches in the shade of several trees.
"I can't believe your parents had you learn to play the fucking lyre when you were a kid. The Biblical lyre. That's absolutely ridiculous," she said to him.
"It's not like I can remember how. I had to learn the trumpet and how to speak German, too, and I don't remember a thing. By the way, do you want some cheese?" he asked. "I brought it for dessert."
"No offense," she said, looking at the squishy hot cheese," but it looks kind of gross after sitting in the heat so long. We could feed it to those geese over there."
They unwrapped the cheeses and pulled off warm sticky pieces and tossed them to a nearby group of Canadian geese. The geese waddled closer, honking aggresively and crowding all around them. Then The Little Match Girl noticed a brown spider descending onto her arm. She jumped, shaking it off. Then there was another on St. Michael's shoulder and three more scurrying across the table. The whole place suddenly seemed overrun with spiders and angry geese.
"Can we go? This is kind of insane," said The Little Match Girl. St. Michael agreed. As they left, they talked about what a shame it was that such a nice picnic had to end so soon.