Daily story, December 31, 2024

Rain stopped play. Smith, who would have suffered a career-ending knee injury that afternoon, played on for many successful years. Two old friends who had arranged to meet never found another date that worked. The couple who would have split up on the drive home kept on resentfully for a decade longer. The hot dog van outside the ground, always on a knife-edge, went out of business; many cases of food poisoning were averted. A seven-car pileup never piled up. Danny Crawford did not miss his wife’s early labour. A dozen unfaithful partners each had to cancel their rendezvous. A snail was stepped on; another was not. The dry earth was watered.