Glen's Japanese Garden

Glen had always wanted to move to Japan. Ever since he was a kid. And none of us were kids anymore. Most of us had kids of our own. Maybe some of our kids wanted to go to Japan? But Glen had always wanted to move to Japan and he was still living here, in the town where we all grew up. He had not even been there for a holiday. So, when he showed us what he had done to his garden, we all knew where he was coming from. It was a perfect Japanese garden with some sort of cherry tree and a bed of polished pebbles. The others went on about what a great idea it was and how they were surprised that he hadn't done it before. But I looked at him and I knew that he hadn't done it before because, before, he had always been going to go to Japan. He had made the garden now because he knew that he was never going to go there. He was never going to go to Japan.