He is a scientist like me and the only other living human being, so naturally I value his friendship highly.
The Other believes that there is a Great and Secret Knowledge hidden somewhere in the World that will grant us enormous powers once we have discovered it. What this Knowledge consists of he is not entirely sure, but at various times he has suggested that it might include the following:
1. vanquishing Death and becoming immortal
2. learning by a process of telepathy what other people are thinking
3. transforming ourselves into eagles and flying through the Air
4. transforming ourselves into fish and swimming through the Tides
5. moving objects using only our thoughts
6. snuffing out and reigniting the Sun and Stars
7. dominating lesser intellects and bending them to our will
The Other and I are searching diligently for this Knowledge. We meet twice a week (on Tuesdays and Fridays) to discuss our work. The Other organises his time meticulously and never permits our meetings to last longer than one hour.
If he requires my presence at other times, he calls out ‘Piranesi!’ until I come.
Piranesi. It is what he calls me.
Which is strange because as far as I remember it is not my name.
Third Person: The Biscuit-Box Man
The Biscuit-Box Man is a skeleton that resides in an Empty Niche in the Third North-Western Hall. The bones have been ordered in a particular way: long ones of a similar size have been collected and tied together with twine made from seaweed. To the right is placed the skull and to the left is a biscuit box containing all the small bones – finger bones, toe bones, vertebrae etc. The biscuit box is red. It has a picture of biscuits and bears the legend, Huntley Palmers and Family Circle.
When I first discovered the Biscuit-Box Man, the seaweed twine had dried up and fallen apart and he had become rather untidy. I made new twine from fish leather and tied up his bundles of bones again. Now he is in good order once more.
Fourth Person: The Concealed Person
One day three years ago I climbed the Staircase in the Thirteenth Vestibule. Finding that the Clouds had departed from that Region of the Upper Halls and that they were bright, clear and filled with Sunlight, I determined to explore further. In one of the Halls (the one positioned directly above the Eighteenth North-Eastern Hall) I found a half-collapsed skeleton wedged in a narrow space between a Plinth and the Wall. From the current disposition of the bones I believe it was originally in a sitting position with the knees drawn up to the chin. I have been unable to learn the gender. If I took the bones out to examine them, I could never get them back in again.
Persons Five to Fourteen: The People of the Alcove
The People of the Alcove are all skeletal. Their bones are laid side by side on an Empty Plinth in the Northernmost Alcove of the Fourteenth South-Western Hall.
I have tentatively identified three skeletons as female and three as male, and there are four whose gender I cannot determine with any certainty. One of these I have named the Fish-Leather Man. The skeleton of the Fish-Leather Man is incomplete and many of the bones are much worn away by the Tides. Some are scarcely more than little pebbles of bone. There are small holes bored in the ends of some of them and fragments of fish leather. From this I draw several conclusions:
1. The skeleton of the Fish-Leather Man is older than the others
2. The skeleton of the Fish-Leather Man was once displayed differently, its bones threaded together with thongs of fish leather, but over time the leather decayed
3. The people who came after the Fish-Leather Man (presumably the People of the Alcove) held human life in such reverence that they patiently collected his bones and laid him with their own dead
Question: when I feel myself about to die, ought I to go and lie down with the People of the Alcove? There is, I estimate, space for four more adults. Though I am a young man and the day of my Death is (I hope) some way off, I have given this matter some thought.
Another skeleton lies next to the People of the Alcove (though this does not count as one of the people who have lived). It is the remains of a creature approximately 50 centimetres long and with a tail the same length as its body. I have compared the bones to the different kinds of Creatures that are portrayed in the Statues and believe them to belong to a monkey. I have never seen a live monkey in the House.
The Fifteenth Person: The Folded-Up Child
The Folded-Up Child is a skeleton. I believe it to be female and approximately seven years of age. She is posed on an Empty Plinth in the Sixth South-Eastern Hall. Her knees are drawn up to her chin, her arms clasp her knees, her head is bowed down. There is a necklace of coral beads and fishbones around her neck.
I have given a great deal of thought to this child’s relationship to me. There are living in the World (as I have already explained) only Myself and the Other; and we are both male. How will the World have an Inhabitant when we are dead? It is my belief that the World (or, if you will, the House, since the two are for all practical purposes identical) wishes an Inhabitant for Itself to be a witness to its Beauty and the recipient of its Mercies. I have postulated that the House intended the Folded-Up Child to be my Wife, only something happened to prevent it. Ever since I had this thought it has seemed only right to share with her what I have.
I visit all the Dead, but particularly the Folded-Up Child. I bring them food, water and water lilies from the Drowned Halls. I speak to them, telling them what I have been doing and I describe any Wonders that I have seen in the House. In this way they know that they are not alone.
Only I do this. The Other does not. As far as I know he has no religious practices.
The Sixteenth Person
And You. Who are You? Who is it that I am writing for? Are You a traveller who has cheated Tides and crossed Broken Floors and Derelict Stairs to reach these Halls? Or are You perhaps someone who inhabits my own Halls long after I am dead?
My Journals
entry for the seventeenth day of the fifth month in the year the albatross came to the south-western halls
I write down what I observe in my notebooks. I do this for two reasons. The first is that Writing inculcates habits of precision and carefulness. The second is to preserve whatever knowledge I possess for you, the Sixteenth Person. I keep my notebooks in a brown leather messenger bag; the bag is generally stored in a hollow place behind the Statue of an Angel caught on a Rose Bush in the North-Eastern Corner of the Second Northern Hall. This is also where I keep my watch, which I need on Tuesdays and Fridays when I go to meet the Other at 10 o’clock. (On other days I try not to carry my watch for fear that Sea Water will get inside and damage the mechanism.)
One of my notebooks is my Table of Tides. In it I set down the Times and Volumes of High and Low Tides and make calculations of the Tides to come. Another notebook is my Catalogue of Statues. In the others I keep my Journal in which I write my thoughts and memories and make a record of my days. So far my Journal has filled nine notebooks; this is the tenth. All are numbered and most are labelled with the dates to which they refer.
No. 1 is labelled December 2011 to June 2012
No. 2 is labelled June 2012 to November 2012
No. 3 was originally labelled November 2012, but this has been crossed out at some point and relabelled Thirtieth Day in the Twelfth Month in the Year of Weeping and Wailing, to the Fourth Day of the Seventh Month in the Year I discovered the Coral Halls
Both No. 2 and No. 3 have gaps where pages have been violently removed. I have puzzled over the reason for this and tried to imagine who might have done it, but as yet have reached no conclusion.