Sleep story · warm, winter
A fire dying down (a sleep story), when you are doing this for the first time — for jet lag
The last hour of a fire, when it stops being a fire and becomes warmth.
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 fire has stopped being flames and is now mostly red shapes that shift and settle. The dog is asleep on the rug, on the side nearest the heat. Every few minutes a piece of wood falls in on itself with a small collapse of sparks.
The ash in the grate is deep and soft and grey at the edges. 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 forearms get heavy and warm. Feel the weight of the blanket on your legs.
Let the pillow take the whole weight of your head. Feel your belly rise and fall without any help from you.
The heat reaches about a metre from the fire and stops. The logs beside the fireplace are down to the last two.
Notice the places where your body touches the bed, and let them be heavy. Feel your cheeks let go.
Let your breathing get slower without deciding to slow it. Your ankles can go loose now.
There is a smell of woodsmoke in the room that will still be there tomorrow. The room has gone darker than you noticed, and the light is all low and orange.
Your eyelids can be too heavy to open, and that is fine. Let your shoulder blades spread out and drop.
There is a blanket over your legs that you did not consciously arrange. Somewhere in the house, a door closes and everything goes quiet again.
Feel one shoulder go heavy, then the other. Let your upper arms fall wherever gravity puts them.
If you feel restless, that's a feeling, not a failure. Notice if you're being hard on yourself about any of this.
Your jaw can drop slightly. Let your teeth part. Let your forehead go cool and smooth.
Nothing here needs following closely. You do not have to count them.
They will find their own way out. Sleep. Let it all get further away.
Nothing needs deciding tonight. Slower now. Let the dark be ordinary.
If this is your first go, stay with the plainest version of the instructions.
Goodnight. There is nothing left to do.
18 paragraphs, roughly 3 minutes read slowly aloud. Written for warm, winter.
If this story does not settle you, try A lake before dawn — a slow story for the end of the day, before you go back to something hard — for jet lag, Sleep story: a bus at night, when you want to finish something — for a racing mind or A field under snow (a sleep story), if you are sceptical about all of this — for an overtired night.