[ WP ] Tell me a story , any story , but you may only say what DID N'T happen . Good luck .

What did n't happen. No tears, no fireworks, no great calamaties, no black explosions. The world did not collapse on its axis, the buildings did not shake, the rivers did not flood black with tar. 
 
 I will tell you what did not happen. We did not sit knock-kneed together in a nursing home bitching about the nieces that did n't visit us. We never succumbed, at long last, griping and groaning, to the indignity of golf. We did not buy each other mock presents for our retirement parties. We did not walk through town and wonder at the banks and chain stores that replaced our old pubs and chippers. We never, not once, called each other's grandkids ugly. 
 
'I love you, brother,' I did n't say. I never knew things were coming to a close. We left unfinished: a chess match, an argument, a meal. All your plans, they hung in the air, partially completed, half-lived, half-lost. You never said goodbye, and you are never coming back.
