Whatever Happened...?

Introspection sometimes can
converge with random memories
and you wonder as you passage
into those late stages, whatever
did happen to that old neighbour
of so long ago, that co-worker
with whom you lost touch and
haven't given a thought to in so
many years as life took separating
journeys. You know, that couple
with the three mischievous boys 
and the fluffy big Samoyed; how
did she manage when he left her?
You've a neighbour now, just down 
the street, same sordid, sad story.
The woman you liked so much despite
wincing every time she called her
infant daughter a bitch? The ethnic
couple next door with four young boys,
the baby diagnosed at birth with
Down Syndrome, and her ineffectual
despair? The elderly couple who
treated your own as they did their
grandchildren? Above all, as a couple
so young the neighbours thought you
were siblings, wondering where the
parents were, and your fast and firm
friendship with a former British
soldier, father of four, with whom
you two, then as yet childless, spent
so much time until the day his
wife burst into your modest home,
throwing herself sobbing on your
marital bed, her limbs covered in
bruises -- your disbelief when she
shouted hysterically that this was
what that cherished friend was really
like, and a yawning pit opened within
your aching abdomen. And now,
so long after, you recall and then
utterly without curiosity, wonder.