You never know, stranger things have happened.

Bob parked his car to the side of the road in the middle of the bridge and at the highest point, got out, walked to the rail and looked down. It was cold, bone chilling, but he didn't care. He was too despondent to notice the cold. Just as Jimmy Stewart did, when he played George Bailey in the movie, It's A Wonderful Life, he started to cry at the contemplation of what he was about to do.

From where he stood, he could see the Christmas lights in all the houses in town, including his own. With the light fluffy snow that fell, it all looked so pretty, idyllic really. Standing on the bridge and looking out across the town, one wouldn't have thought that Bob was thinking about ending it all, but he was.

Just one last look at his little town before jumping. Only, he hadn't said good-bye to his children and his grandchildren. How could he? What could he possibly say to them. Take care, Papa's going away for a while?

Taking the coward's way out, he had no choice but to end his life. At the end of his options, he had already tried everything else. With the death of him, all of his problems would finally go away and he'd be free from all the worry.

It was Christmas Eve and his family were already tucked in bed. The thoughts of his children without a Dad and his grandchildren without a grandfather was the only thought that made him pause climbing over the fence. How could he do that to them? What kind of life would they have without him?

Then, he figured that his wife was young enough and pretty enough to remarry. She'd make sure their children and grandchildren would have a better life than the one they have now with him in the picture. Yeah, it would be tough in the beginning, but they'd be okay, she'd see to that. She's a strong woman, a survivor. They'll all be fine, just fine, without him.

He wished his life was more like the life of Jimmy Stewart in It's A Wonderful Life when all his friends and family rush to his aid to help him out of a financial jam. He was in a financial jam now, but there was no one there to help him out of it. Real life doesn't happen in the way it does in the movies. Real life is sad and doesn't usually have a happy ending, at least, from all that he's experienced of it. It's always been nothing but a struggle for him, taking one foot forward and two feet back.

He felt so alone, literally and figuratively. Not a soul was out. It was so quiet that he felt the urge to sing, Silent Night, but he didn't, he couldn't, he was so very sad, too sad to even sing. Singing songs, just as Donna Reed did as Mary Bailey in the movie, It's A Wonderful Life, with her husband George, Jimmy Stewart, always lifted his spirits, but not tonight, not this silent night.

He told his wife he needed to get some air. He said he wouldn't be long. He's already been gone three hours. Knowing her, she'd think he was having an affair, instead of having a life and death crisis. Knowing her, she wouldn't miss him and even mourn the loss of him. Knowing her, even after being married 30 years, she probably never loved him, anyway.

He just wanted and needed to get away from her. He couldn't take the arguing, the bickering, and the fighting anymore, not tonight. He couldn't do it tonight. He had enough. Tonight, instead of arguing with her, he was so beaten down that he'd just break down crying. She didn't need to see him any weaker than he already was.

Instead of clearing his head, he went to the neighborhood bar and tried to lose himself in enough whiskey to make him not feel the pain he felt. Only, there wasn't enough whiskey in that whole damn bar to numb the sorrow he felt. He was a failure and a disappointment. He was a loser.

What had started out so excitingly promising, building a retirement community for those residents over 55-years-old, had turned into a nightmare with the credit crunch. Had the economy not taken a nosedive now, of all times, had it just waited another couple of years, after he had completed and sold all his units, he'd be walking on easy street. After only selling seven houses of the fifty he had planned on building, and with those buyers threatening to sue him to get their money back because he didn't have the money to have the utilities install the electric, gas, telephone, and cable lines and build the road into and out of the place, he was doomed for disaster.

It wasn't his fault. No longer able to get loans from the bank, the bank called in his existing loans, loans that he couldn't even pay the interest on, never mind the principal. He was being squeezed into bankruptcy. Having personally signed for everything, he'd lose it all, including his own house. He was ruined.

Now, with not enough money to pay his sub-contractors, he couldn't continue building and with his project stopped, he couldn't sell to collect the deposits he so desperately needed to continue. He owed everyone money. Without at least the deposits received from those customers wanting to buy their dream retirement home, he was dead in the water. His only option was to burn it all down and he would have done that, had he not allowed the liability policy to lapse for non-payment.

He was done, finished. He couldn't even get a job as a construction superintendent and make enough money to tie him over. Everything had stopped. Except for working at Home Depot for little better than minimum wage, there were no jobs, not for someone like him, a dreamer.

He looked down from the bridge at the water. It was pitch black. He could barely see the water below from this height. Everything looked as black and as bleak as his life had been these past several months. He hadn't had a real job in nearly 5 years and he hadn't had hope in a year. Every dream and hope was tied to this construction project that hit rock bottom like the economy did and so much like he'd soon do by jumping from this bridge.

He actually believed he could pull it off and he would have had the rug not been pulled out from under him. Now, he had nothing, no job, no money, no friends, and not even life insurance to leave his wife, his children, and his grandchildren. He felt like such a loser. Even his wife had turned against him.

"You're a loser, Bob. I'm leaving you and getting an apartment, before the sheriff comes and kicks me out of my own home."

He had even borrowed her life savings and the inheritance her father had left her. He promised to pay her back with interest. Now, that was all gone, too.

"What are you doing?"

"Huh?"

Bob turned and there was a diminutive woman nearly half his size, a midget, he thought, or more politically correct, a little person.

"What are you doing?"

"Doing? Oh, uhm, just looking at the view," he said wiping the tears from his eyes and hoping she'd go away so that he could go about doing the last thing he had control over, killing himself.

"No you weren't. You weren't looking at the view. You were thinking about jumping off the bridge and killing yourself, weren't you?"

"So, what if I was?"

"Go ahead then, if you think that will solve your problems. Jump. I don't care. And so it goes," she said, "Tweet, tweet. I'll never understand humans," she said walking away.

"Wait, who are you? I know everyone in this small town and I've never seen you around here before."

"I'm Zelda."

"Zelda? You don't look Jewish."

"And what does a Jewish woman look like? Actually, I'm not Jewish, but Zelda is a name that you'd understand. You couldn't pronounce my real name."

"Understand, why would I understand the name Zelda? The only Zelda I know is from the computer game Mario that my grandchildren play," said Bob.

"Oh, that's not true and you know it."

"I do?"

"What about Zelda from Dobie Gillis. That used to be your favorite show back in the day."

"Yeah, I forget about her. Believe it or not," he said looking at the woman, "she was even better looking than you," he said and apologizing as soon as he said. "I'm sorry. That was mean of me to say that to you."

"Knowing you, as I do, you'd prefer me to look more like the character that Tuesday Weld, played, Thalia Menninger."

"Oh, you're right. She was so very beautiful." Suddenly, Zelda transformed herself to look like Thalia Menninger. "Oh, my God! How'd you do that? You look exactly how I remember her, but that was nearly 50 years ago."

"This is the appearance that I allow you to see. You'd be frightened if you saw what I really looked like."

"Wait, let me get this straight. You can change your appearance to look like anyone?"

"I don't really change at all. I still look the same, a green plumber's friend with a hand on top of my head holding one eye. It's you who changes, not me, rather your perception of what I look like changes."

"So, it works much like hypnotism. I think you're someone else, even though you're a little green toilet plunger?"

"Basically, but I don't particularly like the comparison you gave me to a toilet plunger."

"Hey, you're the one who said you looked like a plumber's friend, not me," said Bob. "Let me ask you a question. Can you make yourself look like Laura Bush. I always wanted to fuck her in the mouth with my cock, while her husband was stuttering, stammering, stumbling, and lying to the American people about there being weapons of mass destruction in Iraq."

"I'm not going to blow you, you sick son-of-a-bitch."

"Okay, okay, just forget about that. It's just a fantasy of mine, anyway. So, where are you from, Zelda? There aren't any little people in the town I live."

"Oh, I'm not from around here," she said with a little laugh and returning his perception of what she looks from Thalia Menninger to Zelda, the woman she presented to him when he first met her. "And that's an understatement," she said with a laugh.

"Are you visiting family?"

"Family? I have no family, never have. In reality, I'm a machine designed to amuse and then destroy my creator. My ship crashed and I had to destroy it, so you humans wouldn't find it and panic that the Earth was being invaded by little green aliens, which is what I am," she said with a laugh. "Sorry, but everything is funny to us. I'm waiting for the mother ship to come pick me up, even that's funny to me. Only, you wouldn't understand my humor."

"That is funny. You've been drinking, too, Zelda? Mother ship," said Bob laughing. "I wish it was that simple, aliens beaming down to take me away. Boy, I could use a trip to outer space right about now."

"I could do that for you, take you away, if you're agreeable. I mean, I certainly don't want to take you against your will. Even though there are plenty of folks in Maine and New Hampshire, who claim they were abducted by aliens. We don't do that," she said with another little laugh.

"What do you mean?"

"I'll take you back with me, if you want to go. It's not that far, a billion light years or two. Actually, it's just on the other side of this dimension. We can take a shortcut. There's a wormhole opening through a black hole that I know."

"To Where? Where would you take me?"

"Tralfamador. That's where I'm from. I'm Tralfamardorian. Tralfamador is in the 4th dimension. I feel bad for you that you humans can only see 3 dimensions. You're missing out on so very much."

"Tralfamador? There's no such place and there's no 4th dimension. I think you've been reading too much of Kurt Vonnegut for your own good, Zelda. Maybe, you should switch to JK Rowling and read about the exploits of Harry Potter or Stephanie Meyer and read about vampires and werewolves."

"Harry Potter doesn't interest me, in the way that you humans do. Besides, there's no such thing as vampires and werewolves. Vampire and werewolves were created as symbolic representation for those who were sexually abused as children, those exposed to a pedophile is much the same as being bitten by a vampire or scratched by a werewolf in the way that they, all too often, become pedophiles themselves."

"I think, as a child, I'd rather face a vampire or a werewolf than a pedophile. Better to be dead than to have to deal with a lifetime of traumatic issues," said Bob.

"If I live to be ten thousand years old, I'll never understand the human emotion of fear, just as you were afraid of living, contemplating jumping off the bridge, you suddenly became afraid of dying. Why are you so afraid of living, as much as you are of dying?"

"So, tell me, Zelda, " said Bob not answering the question and eager to change the subject, "if you don't mind me asking you a question. What would you do if you were me?"

"For starters, I wouldn't be so afraid. Fear, as it seems to me, is a waste of time. Let me ask you a question. When asking me what would I do if I were you, are you asking my opinion as a passerby or are you asking my opinion as a superior alien, one who already knows the answers but cannot change the present to alter the future."

"Really? You already know what's going to happen in the future?"

"I do."

"So tell me. What happens?"

"Well, I can tell you that I know you don't jump."

"I don't? And why don't I jump," said Bob putting a foot to the rail to test the alien's resolve in standing by his statement that Bob wouldn't jump from the bridge.

"Well, because by having had this conversation with me and now with me being part of your present, which I was destined to be and am here by no accident, jumping is not in your destiny."

"I see. So, what is in my destiny, Zelda."

"Success."

"Ah, now, I know you can't see the future, Zelda, because I'm a complete failure."

"It depends how you measure success and failure."

"And how are they measured on your planet, Tralfamador, Zelda?"

"They're not. They're meaningless. Yet, if they were, they'd be measured much in the same way as they're measured here on Earth. I should say though, sometimes, it's just a crap shoot, a lucky stroke or a bad break, and life can change, either way, for the better or for the worse, on the turn of a dime. Whether you believe it or not, much in the way of an algebraic equation, there is always a balance in life."

"Yeah, well, I wish it would turn better for me. Life has been skewed for me and not very balance."

"Oh, but it has, Bob, it certainly has. You have a wonderful life filled with people who love you, a loving and loyal wife, wonderful children and grandchildren. You just don't know it, yet, but you life is about to take off like a rocket to IOK-1."

"IOK-1? Where the Hell is that? And how do you know my name, when I didn't tell you my name?"

"IOK-1 is the furthest galaxy that you Earthlings have found with your primitive Hubble telescope," she said giving me a snicker. "Seriously, Bob, it's not a magic trick that I know your name. I'm an alien. I know the past, present, and future. I just can't change any of it. Do you seriously believe that I wouldn't know your name?"

"So, you do know that I become successful...for sure."

"Yes."

"How?"

"Go home, Bob, and you'll see."

Zelda disappeared just as she had appeared. Who knows? Maybe the mother ship picked her up or beamed her up or whatever the Hell they do to Tralfamadorians in Tralfamador. Maybe he had imagined the whole thing. He was still a little drunk and always had a habit of talking to himself.

Bob climbed down from the railing of the bridge, got in his car, and drove home. When he pulled in the driveway, his wife was there waiting for him. Unlike Tiger Wood's wife, at least she didn't have a golf club in her hand. Only, if she looked more like Tiger Wood's wife, maybe he wouldn't have contemplated killing himself.

"And where have you been, Bob," asked his wife.

Bob wondered if this is what happened to Tiger Woods, when he returned home from drinking. He wouldn't mind having Tiger Wood's money, that's for sure, and his wife either. Definitely, he'd never cheat on that hot blonde, if he was married to her. What in the Hell was Tiger thinking?

"Nowhere, just out?"

"You've been drinking, haven't you?"

"Yes, I celebrated the holiday, if that's what you mean by drinking" said Bob.

"And who were you drinking with, a woman?"

Suddenly Bob felt bad for Tiger Woods to be so driven, so successful in his career, and such a fuck up in real life, a disappointment to his wife, his child, and his family. Who knows, for all that he knew, Tiger Woods may have been bitten by a vampire or scratched by a werewolf. His Dad was quite the bastard.

"I wasn't drinking with any damn woman. If you must know, I was out talking with Zelda. She's not a woman, she's a machine."

"Zelda? Who's Zelda?"

"Well, you wouldn't believe me if I told you, so I may as well tell you. She's a Tralfamadorian from Tralfamador."

"You're either nuts or drunk or a little of both. I'm going to bed. Your supper is in the refrigerator."

Bob took off his coat, hung it on the coat rack, kicked off his shoes, put on his slippers and his sweater, and sat in his easy chair. Glad that he didn't, he wondered why he hadn't jumped off the bridge. Then, the reality of his doomed construction project reared its ugly head. Monday was another deadline for a loan coming due and he didn't have the money to pay the bank. They'd foreclose on everything he owned, no doubt.

He turned on the television and the movie, It's A Wonderful Life Was Playing.

"I hate that fucking movie," he said turning off the television. "I more believe that Zelda exists than the reality of a happy ending like they had in It's A Wonderful Life."

He picked up the newspaper and read the news. He liked doing the crossword puzzle, but before opening to the crossword, he checked the lottery number. He had been playing the same damn lottery number for 30 years, made up from his, his wife's, and his children's birthdays, knowing full well that the day he stopped playing that number was the day that it would come out.

It took him a moment for it to register that the number he read was the number he had played and had been playing since 1980. He won. He won the lottery. He hit the jackpot. A multi-millionaire, he was rich. He couldn't believe it. Zelda was right.

"Shit," he said out loud for no one to hear, "by Zelda being right, that would mean that he just met and talked with an alien, a Tralfamadorian from Tralfamador."

Nah, he was just drunk and imagined the whole thing or did he?"