There was a boy whose brother did nothing with his life except die.
His brother was very young when he died, so that all anyone knew about him was that he had died.
Did he have a personality?
Likes?
Dislikes?
No one knew.

After he was dead, his parents brought home a cat, a gray-faced, foul tempered kitten.
They gave the cat the name of his brother.
They treated the cat just like the would have treated his brother, had he lived.
His brother had a place at the table, though he never used silverware.
His brother shared a room with him, though he never slept under the covers.
When he started going to school, his brother went along with him.
“You’ll have to leave your cat outside,” said the teacher.
“He’s not a cat, he’s our son,” explained his parents.

When they got older, other boys would pick on him because of his brother.
“Where’s your brother now,” they’d say. “Yaaaah.”
His brother was in a different class so he didn’t know.
One day he came home crying with a bloody nose.
He told his brother what had happened, because he couldn’t tell his parents.
The next day his brother was waiting for him outside of the school.
When the other boys started to hit him, his brother was on them like a flash.
Snap! Snap! Snap!
His brother gobbled them down, then settled down to wash his whiskers clean.