NB plot spoilersIn a little street in the West End, a curious shop has spring up. Clod and Pebble - House Furnishers and Engravings. There is little to see from the outside, just a sign, and a gold telescope in the window (previously it was a stuffed, black, Raven). Looking through the door from the street, you can just make out some furniture and the dull yellow glow of a lamp in the distance.
A bell rings as you open the door. Furniture is piled up all around; but a narrow path has been left to guide you inside. What you can see of the walls are covered in old documents, flyers, and photographs. Somewhere ahead of you, a music box is playing a Christmas tune. There is a smell in the air, essential oils, lavender maybe somewhere in the mix.
Beyond a pile of chairs, shielded from view by an old piano, is a parlour room, but you feel like you are intruding. So you wait by the door, until you remember that this is Punchdrunk, and fortune favours the intrepid.
The parlour is cluttered with all manner of objects, but there is still no sign of life. Then you notice an alcove at the back, and there you find a pale, unshaven man, reading a book. He says his name is Robert. He asks after your health, and says he has no watch, and relies on a goldfish to tell him the day. The goldfish swims in a large specimen jar with a tag marked Monday. Other jars, with tags for the rest of the week, surround this jar. He tells you of the fish’s magical properties, of its abilities to leap out of the jar, and to appear in the correct jar for the day of the week.
He takes you by the hand through a dark corridor, past a solitary candle. His mood changes as he stops underneath a swinging lamp. He asks for news of William, hopes that you can help him.
He leads you into a small, cold room, with a low ceiling. There are two wooden chairs placed opposite each other, separated by a table. On the table is a wooden mirror frame, but no mirror. You sit opposite him, you look at him and he looks at you through the empty frame.
He tells you of his brother William, how close they were, as close as close can be, and how one day a figure came through the snow and took him away. You mirror his hand movements, he clutches you hand to his heart. Ominous drones grow louder, so does his voice, echoing against the ceiling. He falls into a kind of reverie.
He leads you to realise that he is the spirit of Robert Blake, and you further realise that it was Robert who was taken from William, not the other way round, and so what you are witnessing is the agony of separation from the other side, from the afterlife.
Then it goes quiet, except for the tinkling of bells. Something has visited. He brings you back upstairs, to the table where the goldfish was. The jars have gone, and instead there is an old box, with a note. You read the note – it is from William, offering comfort for eternity. Inside the box is a glove, which matches the solitary glove Robert is wearing.
He is happy and grateful, and it time for you to leave.
NotesThis Punchdrunk performance is for registered Friends of Punchdrunk only, and by appointment. Once you have made the appointment, you are sent a riddle with the location of the shop.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica: Death of Robert BlakeOne of the most traumatic events of Blake’s life was the death of his beloved 24-year-old brother, Robert, from tuberculosis in 1787. At the end, Blake stayed up with him for a fortnight, and when Robert died Blake saw his “released spirit ascend heavenward through the matter-of-fact ceiling, ‘clapping its hands for joy,’” as Alexander Gilchrist wrote. The occasion entered into Blake’s psyche and his poetry. In the epic poem Vala or The Four Zoas (manuscript 1796?–1807?), he writes, “Urizen rose up from his couch / On wings of tenfold joy, clapping his hands,” and, in his poem Milton, plates 29 and 33 portray figures, labeled “William” and “Robert,” falling backward as a star plunges toward their feet. Blake claimed that in a vision Robert taught him the secret of painting his designs and poems on copper in a liquid impervious to acid before the plate was etched and printed. This method, which Blake called “Illuminated Printing,” made it possible for Blake to be his own compositor, printer, binder, advertiser, and salesman for all his published poetry thereafter.
The Clod and The Pebble by William Blake"Love seeketh not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a heaven in hell's despair."
So sung a little Clod of Clay,
Trodden with the cattle's feet,
But a Pebble of the brook
Warbled out these metres meet:
"Love seeketh only Self to please,
To bind another to its delight,
Joys in another's loss of ease,
And builds a hell in heaven's despite."
Dave came too 
