bob raze we were almost inside the house when i saw a tan suv stop in the middle of the road. "it's bob," i said. i walked down the front steps and back onto the driveway. my dad followed me. bob rolled down his window. "hey bob," my dad said. "how are you?" bob smiled. "if i said i'd been better, it wouldn't be a lie." his wife died last year. we haven't seen him since. he looked good, considering. thinner, but still himself. i have a tin box full of blank cards with monochrome watercolour paintings of birds on the front. i've probably had that box for more than half as long as i've been alive. i only use the cards for special people. there are still some cards in the box, but all the grey envelopes that came with them are gone now. i used the last one for bob. in the card i wrote for him after his wife died, i told him how sorry we were and how special she was. we never really got to know her, but she made our lives better just by being who she was. i told him that too. i didn't think it would mean much to him. i did it anyway. "what's going on with your music?" bob asked me. "nothing," i said. i told him about the album i spent six years making and the live show i spent the same amount of time building up from nothing. i told him about how what was supposed to be the summation of my life's work disintegrated when all the people i thought were my friends abandoned me. i told him about the opportunistic stranger who got wind of what i tried to do and got some of the same people who wouldn't show up for me to come through for him. i told him about how he recycled and watered down my ideas and hogged all the glory. "i don't write songs anymore," i said. "i can't. whatever used to be there, it's gone." i thought he would make a joke about it. he didn't. his face filled up with pain. "that killed something inside you," he said. "didn't it?" yeah. it did. "but there have been good things," i said. "we've been walking for more than two years now. we've made great friends with people and animals in the park." "well," bob said, "the next time you're walking by my house, feel free to stop by. i've always got a pot of hot water on." he said he saw us getting out of the car when he was driving by. he looped back around, hoping to catch us. "when you dropped that card in my mailbox," he said, "it meant something. i just wanted to say thank you." then he drove away so we wouldn't see him cry. 220426 what's it to you? who go blather from