Quilight Zone: The Gift

Prologue: You're traveling into a new creation, a city on a hill, a journey to a land of quiet constellation. In the still of the night, that's the lamp-post up ahead,your next stop-The QuilightZone.

TheGift (based on O'Henry's Gift of the Magi)

"Way back in the day young men earned $30 for a 54-hour week, a shabby room rented for $8, girls often let their hair grow down to their knees and men wore pocket watches. Case in point: Mr.& Mrs.James Dillingham Young,whose irresistible zeal for the idealgift will run into the immovability of Murphy and his head-scratching magicmoment...inthe Quilight Zone."

Just $1.77. And $.52 of it was in pennies, pennies saved one at a time over many weeks. Della counted again with the same result. And tomorrow was Christmas. Not good. There was nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little chair and cry. So Della did just that.

While Della is drying her eyes, notice the home, furnished at $8 per week. A lamp with a cracked shade and a floor that squeaked at every step. In the hallway is a mailbox, rarely used, and a doorbell that didn't work. Over it was a card with the name James Dillingham Young,but whenever James came home to the room on the top floor he was called "Jim" and hugged by Mrs. Young, whom you already know as Della.

And so Della finished drying her eyes and powdered her nose. She stood by the window and looked out sadly at a gray cat on a gray fence in a gray back yard. Tomorrow would be Christmas, and she had only $1.77 to buy Jim a present. She had been saving every penny she could for months, with this result. $20 a week isn't a lot, and expenses had been greater than she had expected. They always are. Only $1.77 to buy a present for Jim. HerJim. She had spent many hours planning something worthy of Jim but what could she do? Suddenly she turned from the window and looked into the mirror with joy in her face. Quickly she pulled down her hair and let it fall to its full length.

You see, there were two possessions that both Jim and Della took tremendous pride: Jim's large gold pocket watch handed down from his grandfather, and Della's stunning hair. Nobody else had hair as long and golden as Della's, and nobody else had a watch as stunning as Jim's.

And so Della's long hair fell about her, rippling and shining like a cascade of sunshine. It reached BELOW her knee! Then she pinned it up again nervously and quickly. Once she hesitated for just a minute and stood still while a tear or two splashed on the worn carpet.

She put on her old brown jacket and old brown hat.Then with a whirl of skirts and a bright sparkle in her eyes she fluttered out the door and down the stairs to the noisy street. She stopped at the sign which read: "WIGS MADE TO ORDER." Della ran up one flight. There she met a large gruffish woman.

"Will you buy my hair?" asked Della.

"$20," said the large gruffish woman. "But understand, you will have just two inches of hair left when I'm done."

"I understand. Go ahead...do it," said Della. Snip, snip and snip….and it was finished.

And for the next two hours Della floated gaily from one store to another looking for Jim's present.She found it at last. It was just right for Jim and no-one else. There was nothing like it in any of the stores, and she had turned all of them inside out. It was a platinum chain, simple and elegant in design. It was even worthy of Jim's glorious watch. As soon as she saw it she knew. It was like him, cool and valuable.

It cost $21, and Della hurried home with the $.77. With that chain on his watch Jim could check the time in any as the watch was, he sometimes looked at it on the sly because of the old leather strap he used instead of a chain.

When Della got home she took out her curling iron and went to work repairing the damage done by her grace and her love for Jim. Within 40 minutes her head was covered with tiny curls that made herlook a little bit like a boy and a lot like a kid. She looked in the mirror for a long time. "If Jim doesn't kill me before he takes a 2nd look at me, he'll say i look like a chorus girl, but what could i do, what could i do with $1.77," she said quietly.

At 7pm the coffeewas made and the frying pan was on the back of the stove hot and ready to cook thechops in a jiffy. Jim was never late. Della doubled the chain in her hand and sat on the corner of the table near the door that he always entered. Then she heard his step on the stair on the first flight below. She felt scared for a moment. She had a habit of saying tiny prayers about tiny things so now she whispered, "Please, God, make him think I'm still pretty."

The door opened and Jim stepped in and closed it. He looked very thin and serious. Poor fellow, he was only 22. He needed a new overcoat and he was without gloves. Jim stopped inside the door, eyes fixed on Della. It was not an expression she expected- not anger, surprise, or horror. He simply stared at her with that strange expression on his face.

Della wiggled off the table and went to him. "Jim, dear," she cried, "Don't look at me like that. I had my hair cut off and sold it because i couldn't live thru Christmas without giving you a present. It'll grow out. You don't mind do you? I just had to do it. It grows back so fast. Say 'MerryChristmas" and let's be glad. You don't know what a beautiful, nice gift i have for you."

"You cut off your hair?" asked Jim, slowly, as if he still didn't know it after a lot of thinking.

"Cut it off and sold it," said Della. "I sold it for you. Don't you like me just as well? It's still me and it's Christmas Eve. Please,Jim."

Jim woke up quickly out of his dream. He threw his arms around Della. Thendrewa package from his overcoat pocket and laid it on the table. "Don't make any mistake about it, Dell," he said. "I don't think there's anything in the way of a haircut, shave or shampoo that could make me like you less. But unwrap that package. You'll see why I was shocked."

Della's nimble fingers tore at the string and paper. And then a scream of joy; and then, alas!, a quick change to tears and wails requiring all Jim's comforting powers. For there lay The Combs- the set of hair combs that Della had worshiped forever in a Broadway store window. Brilliant tortoise shell combs with jewelled rims-just the shade to wear in her vanished hair. They were pricy she knew, and she had longed for them without hope of having them. And now they were hers, but the golden locks that should have adorned them were gone.

She hugged them tight, and after a while was able to look up with dim eyes and smile and say, "My hair grows so fast, Jim!" And then Della jumped up like a little scared cat and cried, "My turn!"

Jim had not yet seen his gift. She held it out to him eagerly in her open hand. The shiny metal chain seemed to flash with a reflection of her bright spirit. "Isn't it beautiful, Jim?" I hunted all over town to find it. You'll have to look at your watch a million times a day now. Give me your watch. I want to see how the chain looks on it."

Instead of obeying her, Jim tumbled down on the couch, put his hands under the back of his head, and smiled a tired smile. "Del," he said, "let us put our gifts away and keep them for a while. They're too nice to use now. I sold the watch to get money to buy your combs. Truth, my dear wife, is stranger than fiction."

Postscript: "Little ditty about Jim and Della. Two sacrificially gracious New Yorkers doing the best they can. If there's a fine line between tragic and magic then Jim and Della are models for hoeing that row,for it is a labor of love, for newlyweds and all of us passersby in TheQuilightZone.