From my post a couple of days ago about Charlie’s Angels, I keep thinking about equality in stories.    Any story.

I’m not referencing equality gained or equality lost.  Anything with some sort of downtrodden princess is right out. Some poor soul who rises through the ranks to save the world.  Nope.   That’s not what I’m getting at.  Those are types of journies that make the story.    I just want the story/story about equality between two people.

I can only really think of one.
It’s a favorite although I don’t know the title or the author.    It’s an old story that, I think, originated somewhere during the dank Victorian era over some hundred years ago.  Of course, it could be in any setting, but that’s what sticks in my mind the most.

It’s about a man and a woman.
They each work and love each other very deeply.
Each of them works doing awful jobs, but they’re happy when they see each other.  It’s love.

Christmas is coming and each has aspirations to buy the other a present.   Of course, this is kept in secret, but since they know each other so well they know what the other wants, desires, and needs.  (Correction ….   They ** think ** they know what the other one wants.)   There’s no guessing about what, when, where, or even how much.    They didn’t give a thought to social correctness, who spent the most, or what would the neighbors think.

They simply wanted to buy a present that would make the other happy.

The man loved the woman’s hair.  I’m thinking it was your typical long, straight, and golden affair.  Despite the gloomy one-room apartment they shared and miserable work, the light shining off her hair gave him hope.  The light, to him, symbolized their love and it out shown anything in the world.

The man could play the piano.  The woman loved to listen.  She could hear his emotions and feel that they were connected.  It didn’t withdraw her from the dank world but lightened it.    If he could play, the world was perfect.  For her, his music was stabilizing.   It was home.   It was faith.   But, it was something that never happened.   They were too poor to own a piano.  His playing was only a memory.

Then, you know, crap happens.

The man wants to buy some fancy gold and gem-studded combs for the woman’s hair for Christmas.   To earn the money, he takes on an extra job working nights unloading some sort of cargo.

This extra job separates the couple for most of the day.  During his last night of work, something happened and his hands were smashed.   I’m talking all the fingers broken.   The bones in the palms shattered.

But, true to his self-promise, he bought the golden combs.

The woman cut and sold her hair.    Not just the long ends, but to the scalp.  The very roots of her hair were scavenged. There was no way that she would ever be able to grow a strand on her head again.

She bought the piano for her husband.    I’m sure you see the pattern.   He couldn’t play it, of course, wish smashed hands.   She couldn’t wear the combs her husband had worked so long and hard for.

And, that’s where it ends.

We don’t know if they stayed together.   We don’t know if their lives improved or became worse.   That’s where the story ends.

I think equality comes in that each of them traded what the other person loved for something they thought they wanted.

I guess it could also be argued that the couple crippled themselves to provide a want instead of hanging on to what was needed.

We can spin this story into all sorts of directions about consumerism, the lower class, and the time period, but that’s not what I want to get at.

I like to believe that they equally loved each other.
Equally wanted to provide the best for each other.
But, in doing so, equally damned each other.

Yes, I think they stayed together but not because their love was strengthened by their sacrifices, but because of their misery.

Who would possibly accept them or want them now?
He can’t work and she’s disfigured.   (Yeah, I know it’s just her hair but someone of her financial standing couldn’t afford a wig.)  A woman’s looks were everything in the Victorian era.

They respected and loved each other.   They were willing to make sacrifices and they did.

Did they screw up?
Who is really to say.   But they did together for the same intentions and suffered the same results.

That’s equality.