It was just after 3:00 P.M. on a cold winter Friday afternoon. Exhausted, Shirley left the elementary school where she taught and stopped at the corner diner for a badly needed cup of coffee.
“Pass the sugar, please.”
Sitting next to her at the counter was the same handsome young man Shirley kept bumping into during the past few weeks.
“Thanks,” he said with a pleasant smile. "Destiny seems to be pushing us together."
Lenny Gordon, was a lawyer who had recently started working for a prestigious law firm. The couple began talking and hit it off right away. After forty-five minutes, Lenny looked at his watch.
“Gee, but time certainly flies when you’re enjoying yourself. Look, I’ve got to get back to the office, but I'd like to see you again. I don’t suppose that someone as pretty as you could be free tonight?”
Shirley hesitated.
“Ah come on, take a chance. I'm really a very nice guy.”
He did seem kind of sweet so she nodded.

•

It wasn’t long before Shirley and Lenny became almost inseparable. When the young couple eloped within the year no one who was close to them was surprised. They moved into a two-bedroom apartment in Queens and smoothly settled down. On their first anniversary, Lenny took Shirley to the plush Tavern On The Green restaurant in Central Park.

After ordering a bottle of champagne, he put around Shirley’s neck a beautiful diamond pendant.
Shirley face was glowing. "And my gift, Sweetheart, is coming in about eight months."
"Eight months?"
Shirley pointed to her stomach. "It takes time."
Lenny, who had been holding the bottle of wine, caught the gist and spilled the wine all over himself.

The next few months were busy ones. The sonagram showed a boy, so they decorated the nursery in blue, making sure it had everything the baby would need. Shirley took a leave of absence a couple of months before the due date. It was a joyous time. Then tragedy struck. Shirley fell outside her apartment house. The doctors tried to save her baby, but failed.
"It’s not fair," she repeated over and over again.
Lenny tried comforting her, but to no avail. Eventually she was given a stronger sedative to calm her down.
“It will take a while for her to get back to herself, so try and be patient,” the doctor sympathetically advised Lenny.
Lenny tried helping her, but in the months that followed, Shirley became worse and hard too bare.
“Shirley, you've become lethargic since the accident," he told her. "You’ve got to start doing things again. Maybe you should talk to a psychiatrist.”
“I don’t need or want your advice. Just leave me alone,” she snapped back.
Lenny rushed out of the apartment, slamming the front door.
From then on, Lenny began coming home late from work. Finally, one night he didn't come home at all. The next morning, Shirley called his office, but no one answered. Pacing back and forth in her bedroom, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. A dishevelled image starred back.
“I can’t believe that's me,” she thought, snapping back into reality.
Looking around, Shirley became acutely aware that the apartment was dusty and disarrayed. Immediately it was cleaned up, then after taking a shower, made herself presentable again.
“I hope it’s not too late,” a strange low-toned voice said behind her.
She turned around. A tall white haired man with sharp blue eyes was starring at her. He was dressed in one piece yellow outfit.
“Who are you, and how did you get into my apartment?” .
"My name is Steward Rollins and I have come from the future to get you and your husband back together, otherwise the human race will be wiped out when a certain catastrophic event will occur generations from now."
Shirley laughed. “You don’t make sense. How would the fact that my husband and I stay together save the human race? We aren’t scientists, you know.”
“But your child will become one, brilliant enough to save us.”
Shirley’s face turned red with anger. “What kind of sadistic creep are you? I just lost my child.” She was about to weep, when the stranger gently took her around.
“I am referring to your next child.”
Shirley looked at him in amazement.
“Look, we’ve got to get moving. Shirley. Your husband was hit on the head and is lying unconscious on the side of a country road near Washingtonville, New York. It’s about an hour and a half from here. We’ve got to go and help him.”
“My husband has the car. I’ll have to phone and rent one.”
“There’s not enough time. I’ll get us there, telepathically,” he said as he snapped his hands.

There was a blinding flash of light, and the next thing she knew was standing on the side of a country road. Lenny’s abandoned car was nearby.

From her right she heard moaning. A very pale Lenny was slumped against the base of a tree. He had a big gash on his head.

Bending down, Stewart took from his pocket a small silver rectangular device. A gold laser beam was focussed on the injury.

Within seconds, color returned to Lenny’s face as the wound disappeared.

Stewart gave a sigh of relief. “Well, things should be fine now. Get him home, and no more arguments, Shirley. Let destiny take its course. He vanished as Lenny regained consciousness, was he surprised to see Shirley standing there!

It took a lot of convincing, but he finally believed her after she explained to him how she had gotten there.

It was then that he confessed how he had landed up on that country road. After work, he was followed by a vagrant to his car and forced by gunpoint to drive him to Upstate New York. When they reached a certain spot, the criminal slugged Lenny and left the car.
With Shirley was out of her depression, life resumed normalcy.
As predicted by Stewart, Shirley gave birth to her only child, Lennard Mark Gordon, Jr, a year later.

Intelligent like his parents, Lenny Jr. was good-natured and highly motivated. He was a model child, the type most parents wish they could have. When he got older, the youngster became extremely interested in astronomy, physics, and electronics. In college, he excelled in these areas and eventually, as predicted, became one of the top scientists in America.

Six months ago, he became involved in a secret scientific summit that was held when it was discovered that a huge asteroid had broken away from the gravitational pull in the Asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars. Unfortunately, it was quickly moving in the direction of Earth. If it hit our planet, the results would be catastrophic. In the little time left, Lenny Jr. headed a group and came up with an effectual computerized guided missile system that smashed this asteroid, saving our planet and all living things on it.

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