Sleep story · winter, still
A field under snow — a slow story for the end of the day, when the house is busy — for a night when you do not want to think
Everything muffled, everything white, and no tracks but yours.
Lights off. Press begin and let the story read itself to you, at the pace of sleep.
Screen on or off — we suggest dimming it, or simply closing your eyes after the first paragraph.
The story, in full
The air is so cold it feels dry, and your breath is visible for a long time. There are no footprints anywhere except the ones behind you. The farmhouse at the top of the hill has one window lit.
A single crow crosses the field and lands on the fence, then thinks better of it. The snow on the branches is holding, and every so often a small amount slides off. Nothing in this field needs to be done today or tomorrow.
Feel one shoulder go heavy, then the other. Let your thighs be as heavy as they want to be.
Let your tongue sit heavy in your mouth. Feel the weight of your head on the pillow.
The light is flat and grey and does not cast shadows. The fence posts are capped with snow and look shorter than they are.
Let your breathing get slower without deciding to slow it. Let your upper arms fall wherever gravity puts them.
Feel the top of your head relax into the pillow. Feel your belly rise and fall without any help from you.
The snow came down all afternoon and has now stopped, leaving the field completely unmarked. The sound of your own boots is the loudest thing for half a mile.
Feel your heels sink a little into the mattress. Let the space between your eyebrows smooth out.
Your hands are warm inside your gloves and cold at the wrists. There is a gate at the far end of the field, half buried and not going anywhere.
Let everything you were holding today stay on the floor beside the bed. Let your shoulder blades spread out and drop.
Notice whether you're breathing or holding. Start breathing again. If nothing much is happening, that's not a problem. Nothing much is often the point.
Your chest can be still now. Your ankles can go loose now.
Nothing here needs following closely. Stay.
Let the thoughts come and go without you getting up to answer. Let the room get slightly further away. Softer.
Let them. Let the quiet be boring. Slower.
It works with other people in the house. You do not need silence.
There is nothing more to follow. Let the rest happen on its own.
18 paragraphs, roughly 3 minutes read slowly aloud. Written for winter, still.
If this story does not settle you, try Sleep story: a lighthouse at the end of a long day, when you are somewhere unfamiliar — for waking too early, A lake before dawn (a sleep story), when you want to be left alone — for waking too early or Sleep story: a fire dying down, when you are at home and cannot settle — for an overtired night.