Robert? I ask. I have been looking for him for what feels like years. I am fazed by the house I find myself in the parlour of. It is small and narrow, and I feel like an uncomfortably enlarged Alice. I want to leave, but stopping me is this overpowering need to find Robert. He is here somewhere, I remember from before. Robert! I shout uncertainly, and my voice echoes back at me from the empty walls. I want to leave. A solitary lightbulb swings back and forth like a pendulum, casting frenzied oscillating shadows of myself above me and below me and beneath me. I feel trapped. IwanttoleaveIwanttoleaveIwanttoleave.

I don’t leave. I push open instead the heavy cast-iron door, and step into my paradise. I never want to leave again. I remember this from last time also. There sits an amiable, wizened old man at a weathered oak desk. He has friendly white hair sprouting from his ears, friendly white whiskers, friendly wisps of white hair forming a halo around the friendly pink shine of his crown. I smile at him, and he smiles back and raises two friendly white eyebrows. He is surrounded by books, new books and old books and collectible gilt bound books pushed together on roughly-chiseled inbuilt shelves. A melting pot of literature. In the corner crackles a friendly fire. I stand transfixed. I never want to leave again. I remember Robert.

Robert! I remember Robert, I need Robert: he is the missing bit of me, and without him I wouldn’t be able to leave even if I wanted to. Robert has to show me something, although I am not quite sure what. Past the next door I find a wooden jetty. If I were to stand on it and look down, past my feet, past the wooden slates, I would find ripples of water and the semi-translucent, distorted shape of peaceful cold water fish. This is almost too much, I think, not looking down, somewhere there must be a catch. I must find Robert.

And finally, two doors at the end of the corridor. Robert, I call plaintively. He must be behind one of them.

He is not. What comes out to usher me through a door is not Robert. A man with no legs. Robert isn’t here. He is quite clearly put out by my presence. I am The Ballet Dancer. When he says that, I recognise him. He holds in his hands realistic clay figures. Every one is a dancer. He takes the one with the black tutu and twists an arm. Her corresponding life-size figure twists an arm mechanically.

The Ballet Dancer catches my eyes stealing over his assorted figures. The room is full of macarbre mannequins, twisting lifeless arms. This is all there is, he says unapologetically, gesturing with an impatient flick of his head. Get in line.

But… I stutter… Robert.

IwanttoleaveIwanttoleaveIwanttoleave.

Take your place next to him, The Ballet Dancer says. His hands fashion a little clay model of me in less time than it takes him to give me his spine-chilling order. If Robert is a ballet dancer, dancing for The Ballet Dancer, then I will never leave. Take your place, he barks from above me. He towers on two metal tripods. I want the friendly whiskered man back. The Ballet Dancer tweaks little clay legs into place, and I find myself there, next to Robert, who looks blankly through the wall.

I resign myself to being here forever. Robert, I whisper. Either he does not hear me, or my numb lips refuse to yield. Robert jerkily stretches a leg to the ceiling and a hand out to the wall, imploring, and I give up.

Robert, I cry as I find my limbs involuntarily performing elaborate jerky acts of fake elegance, we shall never leave.