The last time I saw him, he was working on a wood burning project, an art thing. I’d never known him to do anything creative, and it looked really good. I couldn’t see enough of the finished thing to know what it was, I just know that it looked good.

I wanted to tell him that we should hang out soon, that we should go bowling on Saturday or maybe to the zoo. I wanted to tell him that I’d missed his company and that it wasn’t doing him any good to shut people out of his life.

But I didn’t. I just said hey and left. I don’t even know if he knew I was gone.

It was the last time I ever saw him alive, though he lived another 20 years.

I wonder if he ever finished the burning, what it was, and how it came out.

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