Toughened glass seemed to slide back on a cushion of air, into a hallway with the lights all dimmed. A reception desk rested in the shadows, an empty seat behind, and a ball-point pen with the cap off lay at an angle next to a pad of forms, half a cup of long-cold tea evaporated imperceptibly on a ring of its own making on the dull woodwork.

The palm of a hand struck the brass bell on the counter and scared up the empty space. Momentarily. Several minutes later the lights brightened and a drowsy figure appeared from behind a swing door leading to a corridor at the back. What have we got?

Crisis situation. Need a bed for the night, Maybe longer. Found him out there, not doing too well. Keep an eye out.

I’ll just do the forms. Is he here of his own free will?

I signed a name. Yes, I came willingly. With a big hand supporting each of my armpits and my feet skimming the ground and before that a blaring siren and the stench of diesel and hot rubber and before that still the sound of screaming women and roaring men and the soft soothing tinkle of breaking glass and the crackle of flames that warmed me. And the gentle voice of a policeman with his knee in my back saying we’ll take you somewhere safe where it’ll all be over. So I shut my eyes and let my brain pass out.

Now, never mind, son, some of them snore, but you’ll be all right here, they’ve all had medecine. If you’ll just take this, it’ll help you sleep. Just change into these pyjamas. This bed’s yours.

Stripes. Blue stripes. Drawstring. Too short. Gap in the middle to show off my public parts. Keep pulling them together. Under the covers. Now. Quickly. Send my fear to sleep.

And the dimmed night lights, the fresh air shut outside, superheated cast-iron pipes and the sonorous grumbling of two dozen sedated strangers in blue stripes kept him awake all night, till the sheet grew wet and wrinkled and his head, though still awake, filled up with the drugged sleep he had been given so that he felt incapable but not better. At six am breakfast was called and half the snorers couldn’t stand with the drugs still pulsing round while the rest dressed, absent-mindedly, or frantically, in second-hand day clothes and filed in demented lines or shuffled, withdrawn, along the corridor to the dining room to spill their cornflakes and crumble their toast and burn their numbed lips on cups of hot tea, or perhaps just sit there waiting for help and their dose of daytime medicine which would hold them in a condition no better than this for a few more hours. During which, with luck, no more harm would be done.

I went with the others, in my striped pyjamas, and my scared stomach couldn’t eat, the tea was stewed and I hadn’t seen the doctor yet so I got no help from a little plastic cup of pills. Sat there staring at the table, not daring to catch the crooked eyes of the other diners, and played with the spoon, over and over in my fingers, till someone across the table began to bang his tattooed head against the wall and threw his cornflakes my way, complete with bowl. So I said sorry just before they carried him off, three of them, as if from nowhere. Then I went and hid in the toilet, where I locked the door. And I stood behind it, peeping out through the spyhole, there for my protection, and I stood a long time. Now and then someone would walk by the door, some in clothes, some still in stripes, and most never looked at my framed eye. I shouldn’t be here watching this carnival of the deranged pass by, I’m not like them. And one walked by, with his head down, looking no more than sad and entered the next cubicle, without shutting the door. What would be the point? He hadn’t yet dressed and landed heavily on the seat, in blue stripes. The place fell quiet. I was beginning to think of venturing out when the silence was broken by the sound of heavy shoes running as three burly men in uniform piled into the cubicle next door and started yelling, all at once, so I had no idea what they were saying, and one came and stared at my frightened eye and screamed at me get out of there, now, now!

I undo the bolt, an arm drags me out, past the next cubicle, where the sad man sits, barely conscious, covered in blood, with a sharpened butter knife in his lap, slowly dying, facing the corridor, where life goes by. In red pyjamas.