Sleep story · warm, winter
A fire dying down (a sleep story), when you are at home and cannot settle — for a night when you do not want to think
The last hour of a fire, when it stops being a fire and becomes warmth.
Reading it yourself. Back to the audio version.
Every few minutes a piece of wood falls in on itself with a small collapse of sparks. There is a smell of woodsmoke in the room that will still be there tomorrow. Somewhere in the house, a door closes and everything goes quiet again.
There is a blanket over your legs that you did not consciously arrange. The window is black, and the glass is cold if you touch it. The fire will be out in half an hour and nobody needs to watch it happen.
Let your upper arms fall wherever gravity puts them. Feel one shoulder go heavy, then the other.
Your ankles can go loose now. Your fingers can stop doing anything at all.
The dog is asleep on the rug, on the side nearest the heat. The ash in the grate is deep and soft and grey at the edges.
Let the back of your neck lengthen out. Your eyelids can be too heavy to open, and that is fine.
Let your palms open if they were closed. Feel your heels sink a little into the mattress.
The heat reaches about a metre from the fire and stops. The room has gone darker than you noticed, and the light is all low and orange.
Let your tongue sit heavy in your mouth. Feel your belly rise and fall without any help from you.
The logs beside the fireplace are down to the last two. The fire has stopped being flames and is now mostly red shapes that shift and settle.
Let your thumbs rest where they landed. Let your thighs be as heavy as they want to be.
If you're judging your performance, that's the same habit as judging everything else. Your mind will leave about a hundred times. Come back about a hundred times.
Feel your wrists loosen. Let your toes stop holding on to anything.
Slower. Just the breath.
You do not have to count them. Let your attention settle somewhere low, like your feet. Let each breath be a little smaller than the last.
Follow the breath out, and let the next one arrive by itself. Sleep. Let the breath be the only thing you are doing.
Being at home and unable to settle is a very specific problem.
Goodnight. There is nothing left to do.