2.22am. The numbers are gently backlit, not like the old days when the luminous green glow would hover about you sticky as you slept. But, whatever the merits of the modern technology on show, I can’t sleep. Show me someone who can, when under such victimisation by the number 2. I can’t look at that clock any more. It looks like it’s shouting at me. I have a growing fever, which has been coming on since our walk earlier. I thought the fresh air would do me good. Turns out I’m no more a doctor than my mother was.

There’s no way I’m getting to sleep now. I might as well get up. If I turn over, slowly and carefully, trying not to creak the springs, I can see my wife. She’s fast asleep. How is that? Not a care in the world. I take it she doesn’t have a fever coming on.

I get up and head straight for the kitchen. Across the small square hallway, the soft burgundy carpet, the overstuffed coat stand. I know my favourite picture of the start of the South Downs at Winchester is hanging there, and ramrod straight, although I can’t make out any of the detail: it’s dark. Through the living room, carpetless and draughty, I leave the piano alone. I normally can’t resist a tinkle, even though it’s not me that plays, but it’s not appropriate at this hour. It must be 2.23 or 2.24 by now. Down the three wooden steps into the kitchen. I know I must do something with them – varnish, paint, even carpet. The nosing on the middle one is coming away. It drives me mad every time. I backheel it ineffectively back into place. I pour myself a glass of water and sit at the round wooden table, which is as old as I am.

I haven’t turned on any lights, yet I can see everything clearly enough in here. There’s the glow of streetlamps all the way from the front window in the living room (the curtains hardly ever get drawn), and even vestiges of the same from the back window, where I am, across the gardens and the grand houses behind. There’s no such thing as total darkness here.

I try to think of nothing. I’m not angry, not even frustrated. There’s nothing to be angry about. You can’t go underground at the first sign of feeling unwell. I’ll be rough for a day or two and then back to normal. That’s the way it always goes. I look at my glass of water. It’s a nice heavy square glass. I took it from a bar, and I’m not ashamed. I don’t suppose I’ve yet reached the point where I realise there’s no such thing as a victimless crime. Funny how this is what you do when you wake up and can’t sleep: go and get a glass of water. If I think about it more closely, I’m not even very thirsty. Who is it that has fed us all this necessity to drink water late at night?

I’m totally naked, as I’ve come straight here from my bed without a clothing stop. But it’s my own kitchen. It’s my flat. The only people here are me, and my wife, who is as asleep as anyone has ever been. I have started to despise my glass of water. I don’t need it. It’s just messing with my head. I bet it just loves the predictability of me coming into the kitchen, naked, sleep-deprived and intellectually switched off, pouring it without a second thought, then sitting down and absently drinking it.

To teach it a lesson, I push it aside, get up, take another, identical, glass from the wall cupboard, walk the entire width of the kitchen and pour myself a large measure of navy rum from a bottle I opened at Christmas. 100 proof. For a start, it’s just the sort of thing that might get me to sleep before I need to wake up again. Secondly, the nascent fever might run screaming from it. It’s probably too late for that already, but it’s worth a try. I feel better by the time I sit back down in the same chair. It’s a cheap chair, but I’ve never felt compelled to do anything about it.

I can hear some kind of commotion by the window. My flat is the first floor of a large Victorian house. They really built their suburban semis in those days. I have a roof terrace across the whole width of the back: it’s a double-fronted house so it’s quite a decent run. It wouldn’t have been there when the house was built in 1897, but at some point an extension was built, and the terrace is the flat top of that. The extra space this gives the flat has always been considered a selling point, but it strikes me now that it’s probably also a security risk. That ought to concern me more, but as a rule I don’t feel comfortable considering the criminal mind. Despite being a petty criminal myself, evidenced by the satisfyingly sturdy glass filled with killer rum in my hand right now, I can’t conceive of the sort of motivation that would lead somebody to violate somebody else’s property or possessions or person. Violence of any sort is a growing anathema for me. I seemed to be able to assimilate it better when I was younger, but now….. So I make a point of not considering potential criminal situations, at least not on my own doorstep.

Except for now. I can hear scratching, shuffling and the unmistakeable sound of my sash window being lifted. I recently had it refurbished, and I spend a lot of time lifting and dropping it when my wife isn’t around. It’s very possibly the best money I’ve ever spent.

There’s nothing wrong with the lock on this newly-refurbished window, either. I have left it open a touch, as it’s a steamy night and I’m a fresh-air freak. I blame my mother’s influence. And, like I said, I don’t like to consider potential criminal consequences, due to my emotional squeamishness.

But, right at this moment, I’m forced into considering what is happening with my window. It’s a man, that’s for sure, but somehow I don’t feel threatened. He doesn’t look like a burglar. In fact, he doesn’t look much like anything I’ve seen before around here. He’s wearing a light suit – it’s off-white – for a start: hardly what you’d expect a burglar to be decked out in. He’s quite small, though – I suppose that would be an advantage if you regularly had to squeeze through small gaps. But he’s not in the slightest bit lithe, if his current efforts to insinuate himself into this room are anything to go by. That’s definitely a drawback. But I have to stop myself thinking along these lines: he’s not a burglar.

I sit, glued to my cheap chair, and watch as, eventually, all of him arrives in the room and he lands, cursing, on the exposed floorboards. He gets up quickly, looks at me as if I’ve offended him. I feel I would be justified, at this juncture, in pointing out which of us it is that has just broken into the other one’s flat.

‘Errrr….. can I help you at all?’ I ask. That’s the drawback of never having rehearsed what to do when confronted with an intruder. You end up saying something like that.

‘Have you got any food? Maybe a roast beef sandwich. English mustard?’

He’s hungry.

‘Why don’t you check in the fridge? The bread bin’s over there,’ I signal to the worktop with my glass of rum. Somehow I feel like I have the upper hand by refusing to put myself out to feed him. I can be a real hard case sometimes. Although, if I’m honest, I’m feeling a bit self-conscious about being stark naked, too, and I don’t exactly relish the idea of getting up in front of him.

He’s still looking at me like I’ve done something wrong, but slowly he moves over to the fridge and looks hard inside. All he takes is a beer. A can of Kirin. He sits down at another, matching chair. He must have noticed I’m not wearing anything, because he takes a quick peek under the table to confirm. It doesn’t seem to bother him much. He just sips his beer and closes his eyes for a few seconds.

My eyes have adjusted well to the weak light now. He’s definitely shorter than average: his feet hardly reach the floor while sitting on these chairs. His skin is pale, and looks almost ghostly white in the tired glow. His eyes are light, I suppose blue, although it’s impossible to tell. He’s stocky: powerful-looking hands, a wide face, small ears. And he’s totally clean shaven. Even under the circumstances I can tell his face is smooth, like he doesn’t even need to shave. He can’t be a child, though. A child wouldn’t be that used to beer.

‘So, is there anything I can do for you? Apart from a drink?’ I ask him after a minute or so of deep silence. I’m aware that I don’t want to come over as too freaked out about the whole situation, as uncommon as it may be. And the truth is, I’m not. After the day I’ve had, I’m pretty much ready for anything.

He says he’s doing just fine for now – the beer is all that he needs. Beer, and peace and quiet. I take the hint. He finishes his beer while looking around the room, critically. It’s a bit of a shambles: a broken bike in the corner, half-empty crusted paintcans, some plants that should go into the pots on the terrace. I need to get organised.

He gets up, shakes out his stubby legs, ambles across to the fridge, lifts another beer from the bottom shelf and rips a leg rather expertly from the roast chicken that’s in there. He turns and asks if I mind. I wave a hand to show I don’t, even though I do, a little. He sits back down as before, sets his feet swinging and tucks into the chicken leg.

‘Thank you,’ he says after a minute and swinging and chewing. ‘I really did need to go somewhere different and totally switch off. You’ve been great.’ He wipes the back of his right hand across his greasy mouth. ‘It’s nights like this that are the worst: muggy, airless, there’s a virus going around. People are hot. It’s Friday, which means high alcohol consumption. It’s like a perfect storm.’

‘I hope you don’t mind me asking’, I start, ‘but I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about. Why are nights like this the worst? Worst for whom? What is it that you’re getting away from?’

‘Oh, I’m the guardian of the Gates of Delirium.’ I expect him to continue. People would normally continue when they say something this obscure. But he doesn’t. Just gnaws the last recalcitrant strings of meat off the bone, sucks it clean and puts it down on the table in front of him.

‘You’re going to have to explain a bit further,’ I tell him. ‘The Gates of Delirium, you say? What are they? And where?’

He sits up a little straighter, looks serious. I don’t think I’ve offended him, but he appears surprised I’m asking.

‘OK, well. Let me think how best to get it across. Let’s start with what you might consider “normal”. You’ve got everyday, waking life, when your thoughts are ordered, manageable, coherent. Lifelike, you might call them, even. Yes?’

‘Yes. That wouldn’t accurately describe my everyday thoughts, but I understand what you mean.’

‘Good. And you understand the concept of delirium?’ I did. Only too well.

‘Alrighty. Well, to get from the one state to the other, you have to pass through a set of gates. It’s more than just symbolic, you know. There are actually gates, and they define the border between the two. A lot of people are surprised when I tell them, but it’s completely true.’ He pauses for a second, looks at me intently. I’m not giving him much feedback. ‘And I’m the guardian of those gates.’

This wasn’t what I expected when I started this conversation. He is claiming to be in charge of a set of genuine, physical gates that mark the transition point between two purely psychological states. In fact, I can’t think of how a conversation might have started that would have prepared me for this. I must investigate further. ‘So, what do you do? Do you only let certain people through?’

‘I’m not a gatekeeper. I’m the guardian of the gates. I make sure they’re functioning correctly whenever they’re needed, I’m responsible for ongoing maintenance, I have to arrange all the regular safety and operational testing. Lots of paperwork, if I’m honest. It can be a drag. If anything, I’m more likely to be called upon to make sure they go in – I can’t stop anyone. See, it’s a policing job too: I have to make sure my gates aren’t damaged. You’d be amazed how often we get problems because someone’s been hanging on to them for dear life – refusing to go back in. People can exhibit inhuman strength at times of great duress, you know.’

‘People don’t want to go back in?’

‘It’s not many that refuse to come out again! Have you never been there?’

‘I’ve had my share of delirium, yes, I suppose.’

‘Then you must be familiar with the experience. You flit in and out. Neither change in state is particularly voluntary, but I see more of you fighting against going in through the gates than coming out. Nights like this you’ve got to have eyes in the back of your head! Get three or four bulky guys swinging on a weak spot and the whole lot could come flying off the hinges. My life wouldn’t be worth living if that happened.

‘And the stupid thing is, it gets a terrible press. Delirium, I mean. People don’t like the randomness or the lack of structure. They need to let go. In their normal mode of operation, outside the gates, they use about 10 percent of the capacity of their brainpower, or consciousness, or whatever it’s called. There have been studies done on it by some of my superiors. Shocking. I can’t remember the exact amount, but it’s certainly less than 15 percent. You know, everyday life is surprisingly undemanding. Shopping, washing, screwing, working, watching telly can be carried out pretty much on idle. Large swathes of brain matter are left suspended, a kind of eternal hibernation, an invitation to atrophy.

‘But, then, step past my gates into the maelstrom and the remaining 90 percent is opened for you. It’s an unnerving experience for most, I get that. But the benefits are beyond anything you’ve ever imagined. How many times, especially on nights like this, do I tell people to relax, enjoy it, let it in, try not to reject it, no matter how alien it seems? But they can’t do it. Or they won’t do it. It’s too contrary to the closed, smoothed paths they’ve allowed their senses to carve out. It’s a real shame. If only they allowed themselves to be dragged off-road, there are some spectacular secrets there waiting for them.’

Hmmmmm. ‘Why aren’t you there now? How come you’re here in my kitchen, drinking my beer? Rather than doing your very important job?’ I ask. Much as I want to believe him, I’m wary of being taken for a ride. I take a quick look over my shoulder to make sure there isn’t an accomplice rifling the rest of my flat for all my electrical goods. Nothing. Empty.

‘I’m allowed a break! There’s a shift system, you know. There’s no way I can be on duty all the time. Especially on nights like this – we have to keep shifts short and regularly hand over for fresh eyes and hands. And my assistant is pretty keen right now: he’s about to qualify as a fully-fledged guardian. Just needs a few more hours’ on-the-job experience and he’s ready for his final assessment. In fact, I need to get back now.’ He knocked back the last of his beer, pursed his lips and was silent for a minute. ‘Why don’t you come back with me? It’s all very well me spouting these platitudes about the virtues of the delirious state, but you could come and see for yourself. You seem like the sort of guy who might be open to what it can offer you, especially if I can give you a bit of live moral support.’

I’m a bit taken aback. It’s an intriguing offer. I figure I’m probably not going to get back to sleep any time soon, and this might be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

‘Yeah, why not? I’m wide awake, anyway. How do we get there?’

‘Just follow me,’ he says. ‘It’s important to trust me and do as I say. Can you do that, at least until we’ve made it through?’

I start to regret my decision already. This sounds a bit ominous. But nothing ventured, nothing gained. I follow him, obediently.

He starts to squeeze himself through the partly opened window again. I remember the trouble he had getting through in the first place. His language is from a similar lexicon now, as he tries to collect all the pieces of himself and force them in the same direction. After a while he stops and turns his head to look at me from under his twisted arm. His face is red and he looks absolutely incandescent.

‘Well, what are you standing there for? I said to follow me.’

‘I was waiting for you to get through before I started. It looks difficult enough for you. If I join in, we’re bound to both get stuck.’

‘What are you talking about? You must stay with me. If you let me go, that’s the last you’ll see of me. Come on. You said you’d do as I say, so do it. Get yourself into this gap.’

I can’t believe I’m doing it, but I stick my left leg into what cranny I can find, then try and insinuate my left shoulder into the space behind his bent knee. We’re pushing against each other, and making no progress at all, it seems to me. I keep banging my head against the bottom of the sash, or taking one of his flailing feet in the groin. Does it have to be this difficult?

‘Can’t we open the sash a bit wider?’ I ask finally. ‘I’m sure we’d make more serene progress.’

‘This isn’t a bloody holiday camp, you know,’ he growls. He’s trying to extract my index finger from his eye. It probably isn’t a good time to be talking to him. My right foot is still on the kitchen floor. I have managed to get the rest of myself into the window opening, so I suppose that counts as some form of progress. ‘If it was easy, anyone could do it. Just keep wiggling and pushing. Make sure there’s always one part of your body moving forward. Doesn’t matter if something else has to move backwards, so long as something’s going forwards.’

I can’t do anything but take his advice. The few words I manage to pick up from his angry muttering to himself make me think that this is something he has been doing for years and not getting any better at. I can’t honestly see how you would get better at it. It’s an incredibly uncomfortable exercise, but his advice does seem to work. Before I know it, my right leg is up in the mix along with everything else, and the bumps and bangs become slightly less painful. It’s as if we’ve learned to move in time with each other to a certain extent.

Eventually we’re through. I land, unceremoniously, somewhere. It’s dark, but I can feel I’ve got no lasting injury. Maybe a bruise or two. I can stand up, just. It’s the sort of dark that makes it difficult to stand up in a straight line, but I reach out for the guardian, who seems a little steadier. He starts to walk, although he says nothing. His mood seems unpredictable, and I’m wary of setting him off. I keep hold of his shoulder for a while, to make sure I don’t lose him, but soon I can sense him, hear his breathing and I can keep up without the aid of physical contact.

We turn a corner and, all of a sudden, I can make out his stumpy silhouette. Far ahead of us is a light. It’s almost nothing, but compared with the darkness we’ve come through it’s an enormous relief. I’m starting to feel quite comfortable in here, when all of a sudden I’m almost bundled over by something that has approached me from behind and run through my right shoulder as if I’m not even there. I can just see the outline of somebody running, passing the guardian and disappearing into the distance, towards the light. While I’m trying to make out what details I can, I get tagged again and hit the ground. I lift my head and see a pell-mell figure headed straight for the guardian. He’s bound to wipe out the little fella completely. I’m just about to shout a warning when his shadow jinks to the left in the nick of time, then back again to its original home in the middle of our pathway, which is becoming lighter and lighter with each step. Talking of which, I drag myself to my feet before I lose him. He has barely broken his stride. I can only assume his hearing is better accustomed to the dark. I didn’t hear either of those frantic figures coming, which explains the dull ache in my lower back now.

I hear the next one, though. In full stereo. I swerve to my right at the last second and feel the rush of air as he flails into the approaching distance. The guardian does the same, just as I settle back into place. We must look choreographed to anybody watching.

The flying bodies become more and more regular. Each is soundless, apart from the muted patter of feet, and each is moving at an inhuman pace. I’m impressed with our togetherness of movement. And before long I can see the source of the light. It’s coming from just behind the gates.

The gates. Mostly glass and steel, and unfathomably alluring. Both are carved like I’ve never seen anything carved. I wouldn’t even know what tool one might use to create such an effect. The crafted struts appear to morph, alternately tubular and harshly geometric, depending on how exactly the light is hitting them at any one time. On the larger sheets of glass is etched some kind of heraldic device. I can’t take my eyes off them, although all around me men and women are rushing past them without offering a second glance. None of them barge into me now, despite my standing stock still.

The guardian is talking to his sidekick, who is younger, although around the same height and similarly built. The younger man looks vaguely stressed; he’s got a phone clamped to his ear. From what I pick up, there’s a hydraulic problem which is preventing the gates from opening to their full extent. The older attempts some crowd control: he tries to corral the rushing masses around the jammed gate. He counsels moderation and relaxation: if they slow themselves down and accept what they see, without trying to fight it, they will be out quicker, and appreciate more the time they spend inside. But it’s like talking underwater. They maybe see his mouth moving, but the words are getting lost somewhere in a storm of pre-delirium gale.

I’m most impressed by his tenacity. A lesser man would have given it up as a bad job by now. This must happen all the time, which I, personally, would find maddening. But he keeps his demeanour upbeat and in control. His assistant is now off the phone to the engineers. I have no idea how he left it with them. My old friend breaks away from his futile re-education programme to address me for a minute.

‘Go on, wander in. I’ve got this under control, and you’re not here to do a review of our operational procedures. Remember what I said to you. Let it happen. Don’t fight it.’ He winks at me and I pick my way through the melee slowly.

As soon as I’m past the threshold, I’m back somewhere I know I’ve been before. The first thing I notice is that the level and variety of noise is quite incredible, and totally disorienting. It’s like being assailed by thousands upon thousands of mutated voices. There is a human element to them all, something earthly, yet I can make no sense of anything. My natural reaction is to attempt to block them, to reject whatever frequencies they are broadcasting on, so that’s how I set myself up. But I remember what I’ve been told. Switch off the rejection and let it happen. Almost immediately it becomes clear that much of the cacophony was created inside my own head. Things become so much clearer, and I can almost make sense out of some of the voices, which have calmed to a chorus of well-being. I can string together meanings that were hidden before. He’s right: it’s rather beautiful and uplifting.

Once I’ve reached this stage, it’s difficult to remember being anywhere different. I spend several of the happiest minutes I can recall, just letting the stream wash through me. It treats its friends so much better than its foes. Who doesn’t? It’s so personal and solitary, as if the refrain is designed for me alone, that I must look around. As far as I can see through the mists, I find no sign of anybody else. It strikes me as odd, given the mass of manic humanity I encountered a few short minutes ago, on the other side, but I don’t give it an awful lot of further thought. I’m not here to ponder anomalies: I’m here to allow these exquisite and eternal strands of consciousness to thread their way through me, and that’s exactly what I do. There’s so much to know.

Even if you were to ask me what I’m learning, I wouldn’t be able to give you an answer. And then I’m done. At my own pace, I walk confidently back out through the gates. I’m a beacon of calm, back amongst the frenzied crowd again. They are pelting every which way in blind panic. I feel like talking to them myself, giving them the benefit, but I don’t feel I’m the right person for that.

This outside is more unsettling, in many ways. Arrivals and departures are careering into each other all over. Many of those would-be departures are sucked back in: their time isn’t up. I see some of the damage to the exquisite glasswork that he referred to earlier. It’s criminal. But they can’t help themselves.

And yet more pressing than the external chaos is the dissonance inside my own head. I try and strike up a conversation with the guardian, but I can’t get any words out. I feel nauseous. I shut my eyes and let it all happen. All around, an echo of the sounds I was given whilst inside. Some ricocheting off walls, some finding a niche. I let it settle calmly into an ever more distant thrum, and eventually, of its own accord, it subsides completely. I can describe to him exactly what I experienced.

‘That’s perfectly normal,’ he shouts to me while prising despairing fingers from the gate uprights, ‘and you’ve dealt with it well. It’s simply your brain trying to find a home for the stuff you got hold of in there. It’s not as easy as a normal day, but your natural equipment can handle it surprisingly well. Of course, the more practice you get, the easier you find it! Most of this lot find it as bad, or worse, than being in there,’ he watches, satisfied, as the last fingers are detached from the glass and the body flies back into the mists, ‘and some even rush back in to get away from it. It can be quite comical to watch. On slower days, that is. It doesn’t occur to them that when they come back out again they’ll have even more to process and their brain might just totally give up the ghost. That’s when they just fade away and drop back to where they came from. Too exhausted to assimilate the most important things they’ve ever been told. It’s a tragedy. The most human of all tragedies.’

There’s simply no respite for him tonight. His assistant should be on his break by now, but he’s hanging around until the engineers arrive. The pair have a long stretch ahead of them before it gets any better.

‘Well,’ I say, feeling like I’ve achieved a very great deal, but not sure about how to explain what that is, ‘I’ll be off. It has been quite an education. Thanks for your insight. I’m sure I’ll be back again soon, once I feel that I’ve dealt with what I’ve learned this time.’

‘Any time! It was good to meet you. You don’t know how rewarding it is to have somebody listen to me for once. But next time, come on a quiet night. We can chat more. Maybe a chilly Monday.’

I wave. He waves back. I drift away. 2.22am. I’m fast asleep.