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."
