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  At the last moment the albatross swung over my left shoulder. I fell to the Pavement. He flapped his wings in a frantic, panicked sort of way, stuck out his wiry pink legs and tumbled out of the Air into a sort of heap on the Pavement. In the Air he was a miraculous being – a Heavenly Being – but on the Stones of the Pavement he was mortal and subject to the same embarrassments and clumsiness as other mortals.

  We picked ourselves up. Now that he was on the dry Pavement he seemed bigger than ever: his head reached almost to my breastbone.

  ‘I am very glad to see you,’ I said. ‘Welcome. I am the Inhabitant of these Halls. One of the Inhabitants. There is another, but he is not fond of birds and so you will probably not see him.’

  The albatross spread his wings wide and stretched out his throat towards the Ceiling. He made a sort of clacking, whirring sound in his throat, which I took to be his way of greeting me. The backs of his wings were dark, almost black, with a white shape like a star on each one.

  I returned to my work of gathering seaweed. The albatross walked about the Hall. His greyish-pinkish feet made loud slapping sounds on the Pavement. From time to time he came and looked at what I was doing as if it interested him.

  The next day I returned. The albatross had come up the Staircase and was examining the Forty-Third Vestibule. But more than that: imagine my joy when I found that the Vestibule now sheltered two albatrosses! His wife had joined him! (Or perhaps the original albatross was female and this was her husband. I did not have enough information to be certain on this point.) The new albatross had a different patterning on the back of her (or possibly his) wings: a patterning of white flecks, like a silver rain falling. The two albatrosses spread their wings; they danced around each other; they pointed their beaks at the Ceiling and made a joyful shrieking, screeching sound; they tapped their long pink beaks together to express their happiness.

  A few days later I visited them again. This time they seemed quieter and there was an air of despondency and discouragement in the Vestibule. The albatross that I thought of as male (the one with stars on his wings) had fetched up a quantity of seaweed from the Lower Hall. He picked up lumps of it in his beak and made a heap of them. A few minutes later he became dissatisfied with this arrangement and collected the lumps of seaweed again and tried them in a different spot. He performed this action perhaps a dozen times.

  ‘I think I see your problem,’ I said. ‘You have come here to build a nest. But you cannot find the materials you need. There is only cold, wet seaweed and you need something drier to make a cosy nest for your egg. Do not worry. I will help you. I have a supply of dry seaweed. Speaking as a non-avian, I feel sure that this would be a highly suitable building material. I will go and fetch it immediately.’

  The starred albatross spread his wings and stretched his neck; he pointed his beak at the Ceiling and made the raucous clacking sound. This, I thought, was an expression of enthusiasm.

  I returned to the Third Northern Hall. I lined a fishing net with heavy-gauge plastic. Inside I placed what I thought was the right amount of nesting material for two such enormous birds. It approximated to three days’ fuel. This was no insignificant amount and I knew that I might be colder because I had given it away. But what is a few days of feeling cold compared to a new albatross in the World? I made two other additions to the pile of seaweed: some clean, white feathers that I had found and kept for no better reason than because I liked them, and an old woollen jumper that was in so many holes it was of scarcely any use as a garment, but which might do very well as a lining for a precious egg.

  I dragged the fishing net to the Forty-Third Vestibule. I was immediately rewarded by the interest which the male albatross showed in the contents; he seized a beakful of dry seaweed and began trying it out in different places.

  Shortly thereafter the albatrosses built a tall nest approximately a metre wide at its base and laid an egg in it. They are excellent parents; they were devoted to their egg and are now equally diligent in caring for their chick. The chick grows slowly and has shown no sign of being ready to fledge.

  I have named this year the Year the Albatross came to the South-Western Halls.

  The birds sit silent in the Sixth Western Hall

  entry for the thirty-first day of the fifth month in the year the albatross came to the south-western halls

  Ever since the Ceilings of the Twentieth and Twenty-First North-Eastern Halls collapsed two years ago, the Weather in this Region of the House has changed. Clouds drift down through the Broken Ceilings and into the Middle Halls where normally they would not go. It makes the World chill and grey.

  This morning I awoke cold and shivering. A Cloud had penetrated the Third Northern Hall where I sleep. The Statues were delicate white images painted on white Mist.

  I rose quickly and busied Myself with my daily tasks. I gathered seaweed in the Ninth Vestibule and made Myself a breakfast of nourishing, warming soup; then I set off for the Third South-Western Hall to continue my work on the Catalogue of Statues.

  The House was peculiarly silent. No birds flew; no birds sang. Where had they all gone? It seemed they found the Cloud-haunted World as oppressive as I did. In the Sixth Western Hall I found them at last. They were gathered there, perched on the Shoulders and Heads of every Statue, on Plinths and on Columns, sitting silently, waiting.

  The Drowned Halls

  entry for the eighth day of the sixth month in the year the albatross came to the south-western halls

  East of the First Vestibule the House is Derelict. Masonry and Statues from the Upper Halls have fallen through Broken Floors into the Middle and Lower Halls, blocking Doorways. There is an Area covering perhaps as many as forty or fifty Halls where the Tides cannot penetrate. Over time the Sea Water has drained away and these Halls have filled up with Rain, making dark, still, freshwater Lakes. Their Windows are half-submerged in Water or blocked by Masonry, making them dim and shadowy. Cut off from the Tides, they are unusually silent.

  These are the Drowned Halls.

  On the Periphery of this Region the Waters are shallow, tranquil and covered with water lilies, but in the centre they are deep and treacherous, full of broken Masonry and drowned Statues. The majority of the Drowned Halls are inaccessible, but some can be entered from the Upper Level.

  They contain giant Statues of Men with curly Heads and Beards that strain and struggle out of the confines of the Walls, extending their Upper Bodies over the Dark Waters. There is one in particular who leans out so far that his broad, muscular Back forms an almost horizontal platform half a metre or so above the level of the Water, making an excellent place from which to fish.

  Night fishing is best, when the fish are drawn to play in spots of bright Moonlight and are easy to see.

  The Clouds above the Nineteenth Eastern Hall

  entry for the tenth day of the sixth month in the year the albatross came to the south-western halls

  It used to be that I dared not live too close to the Tides. When I heard their Thunder, I ran and hid Myself. In my ignorance, I feared to be caught in their Waters and drowned.

  As far as possible I kept to the Dry Halls where the Statues are not clothed in rags of seaweed or armoured with encrustations of shellfish, where the Air is not scented with the Tides: Halls, in other words, that have not been flooded in recent Times. Water was not a problem; most Halls contain Falls of Fresh Water (sometimes you will see a Statue almost bisected by the Water that has splashed onto it for centuries). Food was a different matter; for that I had to brave the Tides. I would go to the Vestibules and descend the Staircases to the Lower Halls, to the Rim of the Ocean. But the Force of the Waves frightened me.

  Even then I knew that the Tides were not random. I saw that if I could record and document them, I might be able to predict their appearance. That was the beginning of my Table. But, though I grasped certain things about the movements of the Tides, I had no understanding of their Natures. I thought one Tide was pretty much the same as all
the others. It astonished me when I went to meet a Tide expecting plentiful fish and sea vegetation, only to find it bright, clean, empty.

  I was often hungry.

  Fear and hunger forced me to explore the House and I discovered that fish were plentiful in the Drowned Halls. Their Waters were still and I was not so afraid. The difficulty here was that the Drowned Halls were surrounded by Dereliction on all sides. To reach them it was necessary to go up to the Upper Halls and then descend by means of the Wreckage through the great Rents and Gashes in the Floor.

  Once, when I had not eaten for two days, I determined to go to the Drowned Halls to find some food. I ascended to the Upper Halls. This in itself was not easy for someone in my enfeebled condition. The Staircases, though they vary in size, are mostly built on the same noble scale as the rest of the House and each Step is almost twice the height that is comfortable for me. (It is as though God had originally built the House intending to people it with Giants before inexplicably changing His Mind.)

  I passed into one of the Upper Halls, the one that stands directly above the Nineteenth Eastern Hall. From there I intended to descend to the Drowned Halls, but to my dismay I found that the Hall was full of Clouds: a chill, grey, wet blank.

  I had my Journal with me. Consulting it, I discovered that I had been in this Vicinity once before and had in fact made detailed notes of the Hall beyond this one; the Hall above the Twentieth Eastern Hall. I had described the character and condition of the Statues and had even made a sketch of one of them. But of this Hall – the Hall on whose Threshold I now stood, the Hall that was full of Clouds – of this Hall I had recorded nothing whatsoever.

  Today I would consider it madness to journey through a Hall I cannot see properly and of which I have no record, but today I do not allow Myself to get as hungry as I was then.

  Adjoining Halls usually share some characteristics. The Hall immediately to my rear was approximately 200 metres in length and 120 metres wide and so the chances were good that the Hall before me was the same. It did not seem an impossible distance; I was more concerned about the Statues. From what I could see, these depicted Human or Demi-Human figures, all two or three times my own stature and all in the throes of violent action: Men fighting, Women and Men being carried off by Centaurs or Satyrs, Octopuses tearing People apart. In most Regions of the House the expressions of the Statues are joyful or tranquil or possessed of a distant calm; but here the Faces were distorted in screams of rage or anguish.

  I resolved to go carefully. To bash oneself on an outstretched marble limb is painful.

  I entered the Cloud and slowly made my way along the Northern Side of the Hall. Statues appeared, one by one, out of the pale Cloud. They covered the Walls so thickly and were twisted into such tortuous forms that it was like walking under the dripping branches of a great forest of Arms and Bodies.

  One Statue had toppled from the Wall and was lying shattered on the Floor. This ought to have been a warning to me.

  I came to a place where a Statue thrust itself a long way out from the Wall. It depicted a Man, his vast Body flailing backwards, stretched over the Pavement, his Arms thrown over his Head as a Centaur trampled on him. The Palms of his great Hands faced upwards and his Fingers were curled in agony. I took a step away from the Wall to circumvent him and my foot met with …

  … nothing.

  No Floor! No Stone Pavement beneath me! I was falling! I lunged in terror towards the Wall. Immediately, I was caught! I lay suspended over the Empty Air, too terrified to move, my mind deadened by fear and shock. By some miracle I had fallen into the Trampled Man’s Hands. The Hands were dripping with wet and horribly slippery; any movement on my part threatened to loose his hold on me and send me tumbling into the Void. Whimpering with fear and clinging to the Trampled Man with every atom of my strength, I inched up his Arms to his Head; from his Head to his Chest and so to his Lap where I wedged myself in. The Body of the Attacking Centaur formed a sort of Ceiling two or three centimetres over my head. The Cloud was so dense that I could not see where the Floor began again.

  I stayed there all day and all night, hungry, almost dead from cold but deeply grateful to the Trampled Man for saving me. In the morning the Wind came and carried the Cloud westwards. I peered out at the great Gash in the Floor and I saw the dizzying drop – 30 metres or more – to the still Waters of the Drowned Hall beneath.

  A conversation

  entry for the eleventh day of the sixth month in the year the albatross came to the south-western halls

  As well as my regular meetings with the Other and the quiet, consolatory presence of the Dead, there are the birds. Birds are not difficult to understand. Their behaviour tells me what they are thinking. Generally it runs along the lines of: Is this food? Is this? What about this? This might be food. I am almost certain that this is. Or occasionally: It is raining. I do not like it.

  While ample for a brief neighbourly exchange, such remarks do not suggest a broad or deep intelligence. Yet it has occurred to me that there may be more wisdom in birds than appears at first sight, a wisdom that reveals itself only obliquely and intermittently.

  Once – it was an evening in Autumn – I came to the Doorway of the Twelfth South-Eastern Hall intending to pass through the Seventeenth Vestibule. I found that I was unable to enter it; the Vestibule was full of birds and the birds were all aflight. They circled and spiralled, creating a whirling dance. They filled the Vestibule like a column of smoke, which grew darker and denser in places and the next moment lighter and airier. I have witnessed this dance on several occasions, always in the evening and in the later months of the year.

  Another time I entered the Ninth Vestibule and found it full of little birds. They were of different kinds, but mostly sparrows. I had not taken more than a few steps into the Vestibule when a large group of them took to the Air. They flew together in one great swoop up to the Eastern Wall, then in another swoop to the Southern Wall and then they turned and flew around me in a loose spiral.

  ‘Good morning,’ I said. ‘I hope that you are well?’

  Most of the birds scattered to different perches, but a handful – maybe as many as ten – flew to the Statue of a Gardener in the North-West Corner. They remained there for perhaps thirty seconds and then, still together, they ascended to a higher Statue on the Western Wall: the Woman carrying a Beehive. The birds remained on the Statue of the Woman carrying a Beehive for a minute or so and then they flew away.

  I wondered why out of the thousand or so Statues in the Vestibule the little birds had chosen these two to perch on. It occurred to me – it was no more than an idle thought – that both these Statues might be said to represent Industriousness. The Gardener is old and bent, and yet he digs faithfully in his garden. The Woman is pursuing her profession of beekeeping and the Beehive that she carries is full of bees who are also patiently carrying out their tasks. Were the birds telling me that I ought to be industrious too? That seemed unlikely. After all I was already industrious! I was at that very moment on my way to the Eighth Vestibule to fish. I carried fishing nets over my shoulder and a lobster trap made from an old bucket.

  The warning of the birds – if that was what it was – seemed on the face of it nonsensical, but I decided nonetheless to follow this unusual line of reasoning and see where it took me. That day I caught seven fish and four lobsters. I threw none of them back.

  That night a Wind came from the West, bringing an unexpected Storm. The Tides were made turbulent and the fish were driven away from their customary Halls far out to Sea. For the next two days there were no fish at all and if I had not attended to the birds’ warning I would have had hardly anything to eat.

  This experience led me to form a hypothesis: perhaps the wisdom of birds resides, not in the individual, but in the flock, the congregation. I have tried to think of an experiment that would test this theory. The problem, as I see it, is that it is impossible to know in advance when such events will occur; and so the only viable course
of action is months – more likely years – of careful observation and meticulous record keeping. Unfortunately, this is not possible just now since so much of my time is taken up by my work with the Other (I refer of course to our search for the Great and Secret Knowledge).

  However, it is with this hypothesis in mind that I record something which happened this morning.

  I entered the Second North-Eastern Hall and, as had happened in the Ninth Vestibule, I found it full of small birds of different sorts. I called a cheerful Good morning! to them.

  Immediately twenty or so flew in a great rush to the Northern Wall and alighted on the High Statues. Then they flew in a swoop to the Western Wall.

  I recalled that on the previous occasion this behaviour had been the preface to a message.

  ‘I am paying attention!’ I called to them. ‘What is it that you wish to say to me?’

  I watched very carefully what they did next.

  The birds separated into two groups. One group flew to the Statue of an Angel blowing a Trumpet; the other group flew to the Statue of a Ship that travels on little Waves.

  ‘An angel with a trumpet and a ship,’ I said. ‘Very well.’

  The first group flew to a Statue of a Man reading from a large Book; the second group flew to a Statue of a Woman displaying a large Dish or Shield; upon the Shield is a representation of Clouds.

  ‘A book and clouds,’ I said. ‘Yes.’

  Finally the first group flew to the Statue of a little Child bowing its Head to gaze at a Flower, which it holds in its Hand; the Child’s Head is covered with such exuberant Curls they are themselves like the petals of a flower; the second group of birds flew to a Statue of a Sack of Grain being devoured by a Horde of Mice.