# today we saw the robin researcher henry swanson: their tiny black bead eye and perfect angular head stared at our hand as we offered them a crumb from our plate at the local vegan cafe last time we was here they flew straight to our finger and perched there without fear for a whole second before taking the bread we offered they must live around here only not in same way we do since i don't have you by the skyliners now plays in the lab background on the way back to the house not a home we saw our favorite researcher sunbathing in their garden our heart aches so badly how we wished they liked us a scenario in which they'd happen to see us over in the hazy middle distance and smile delicately slowly beckon us over with a single slender painted finger oh what it would be to then stroll quietly and confidently over bathe oneself in their glowing presence this season feels so existentially dry and flatly depressing as if we're slowly dying inside ground down by banality grandly bland mummified days of quiet stomach churning mundane trivia gut wrenching interiority of languid afternoons alone we wonder if anyone else on the team suffers badly from the summertime blues laying there smiling to themselves gently enveloped by their media fog their mobile phone friends and pearly lab grown morals potent biopsychic symbol of everything potentially new fresh exciting yet forever out of reach in our middling backwater nowhere as though still yet waiting to breathe for the first time so life can finally start now later on and researcher dave is playing on the lab intercom radio crooning about how straaange the ghost of love is when your all alone // [[republic of bob contents | imaginary pastime republic of bob]]