Sleep story · warm, winter
A fire dying down, when you have more time than usual — for a racing mind
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 heat reaches about a metre from the fire and stops. The dog is asleep on the rug, on the side nearest the heat. Somewhere in the house, a door closes and everything goes quiet again.
The logs beside the fireplace are down to the last two. The window is black, and the glass is cold if you touch it. The ash in the grate is deep and soft and grey at the edges.
Feel your belly rise and fall without any help from you. Let your ribs stop working so hard.
Your eyelids can be too heavy to open, and that is fine. Let the back of your neck lengthen out.
There is a blanket over your legs that you did not consciously arrange. The fire has stopped being flames and is now mostly red shapes that shift and settle.
Feel one shoulder go heavy, then the other. Let your forehead go cool and smooth.
Let your breathing get slower without deciding to slow it. Let your toes stop holding on to anything.
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.
Let the mattress take all of it. Feel your heartbeat somewhere far away.
The fire will be out in half an hour and nobody needs to watch it happen. Every few minutes a piece of wood falls in on itself with a small collapse of sparks.
Let your shoulder blades spread out and drop. Let your tongue sit heavy in your mouth.
If you've lost track of where we were, you haven't lost anything important. If nothing much is happening, that's not a problem. Nothing much is often the point.
Feel the back of your knees soften into the bed. Your ankles can go loose now.
They will find their own way out. You do not have to count them.
Just the dark. You can stop listening properly. Let each breath be a little smaller than the last.
Let the sound of this go soft at the edges. Follow the breath out, and let the next one arrive by itself. Let them.
This is the longer version, for a day with some slack in it.
There is nothing more to follow. Let the rest happen on its own.
18 paragraphs, roughly 3 minutes read slowly aloud. Written for warm, winter.
If this story does not settle you, try A library at closing time — a slow story for the end of the day, after a long day — for jet lag, A field under snow (a sleep story), before something difficult — for a night when you do not want to think or A hotel room somewhere (a sleep story), when you want something simple — for a night when you do not want to think.