# dead under a bush alone 'duaba': officially the worst fate of any traveller on the path to from the republic that is when one feels so alone and in pain one crawls under a bush to dye also refers to the unique intense feeling of 'what it means to be human' - sitting in a nice cafe at the foot of the lonely mountains and chancing upon a minor notice about such a poor and desperate creature somewhere towards the back pages of a local community newsletter such as 'file under random' upon hearing about such an awful fate an incredible sadness overtakes one - putting the newsletter down for a moment one stares out a nearby window at the beautiful misty morning mountains in the middle distance out past the immediate view of horses pack animals armored golf carts and stealth ninja electric microlight aircraft one can see the dark green bushes of hardy ground hugging vegetation which cover the bass of the mountain and one visualises the morning dew still covering ir soft round leaves before the heat of the day evaporates all moisture from ir innumerable surfaces and under a-not-inconsiderable number of such bushes can be found 'humalien' skeletons curled into a ball closer to home one then notices the gentle steam of one's strong black arab coffee order rising from the surface of the mug andor a twist of faintly blue smoke from one's hexagonal ayahuasca cigarette resting on the edge of a dark stone ashtray the rough wooden floorboards of the coffee shop softly creak as regular patrons arrive for and then depart with ir favorite intense morning brew - and none of that additional sickly syrup bile either and one realises yet again one is quietly alone on a vast alien planet in the smack bang of anywhere an alien on an alien planet; a stranger in a strange land of the collective imagination and one sips one coffee slowly shaking one's head sadly at this news item trying to imagine 'how things could of got so bad' in a person's life that something so tragic as 'duaba' could occur how it could happen is of course patiently obvious; the total collective failure of an utterly corrupt and withered society infinitely more interested in celebrity bake-offs then genuine human compassion - and the resulting collective need to utterly destroy such a societal neurospectacle getting up in silence from one's chair one waves goodbye to aziz the coffee shop owner leaves the coffee shop and /tries to go about one's basic often bland tasting project-rnd day without too heavy a heart and thinks about genuine communal collectivity in the stone dead face of societal atomization and alienation this one is for the lonely soul out here in the often awesomely overwhelming night of vast and expansive humalien loneliness; researcher robert what raises a strong mug o' planet joe to you and bids you hello - 'i'm out here too' // republic of bob