The Amazing Professor Nuostabi's Miraculous Mechanical Man

When the curtain rises, the audience stares in awe at my gleaming brass form and features of polished wood. Before I even start to move, they are transfixed. Then the Professor winds up my mechanisms and I begin to perform, to gasps and applause.

I love entertaining them, but once the lights go down and I am left alone with my thoughts, I feel myself slowly winding down, and I am afraid.

There's always a next time - has always been a next time, and yet I still fear the non-existence in between.

What if this time I don't come back?