A garden in the rain — a slow story for the end of the day, after a long day — for jet lag

Under the awning it is dry, and the sound is a steady, unhurried patter. The watering can by the tap is full and nobody needs it. Water runs off the gutter in a thin, continuous line.

The path has gone darker where it is wet, and there are two small puddles near the step. A snail is making its way along the bottom of the wall, going nowhere in particular. The leaves in the border are dark and glossy and moving slightly.

Let your feet get heavy first. Heavier than they need to be. Let your tongue sit heavy in your mouth.

Feel the back of your knees soften into the bed. Your ankles can go loose now.

There is a wooden bench that nobody has sat on for an hour. There is nothing to do about any of it, which is the good part.

Let your thighs be as heavy as they want to be. Notice the places where your body touches the bed, and let them be heavy.

Your eyelids can be too heavy to open, and that is fine. Feel your wrists loosen.

Somewhere in the hedge, a bird is sitting it out. The rain has settled into the kind that will last all afternoon without getting heavier.

Feel the weight of the blanket on your legs. Your elbows can stop being hinges for now.

The earth smells the way it does after a long dry spell. The rain on the roof of the awning is a lower sound than the rain on the leaves.

Let your palms open if they were closed. Let your upper arms fall wherever gravity puts them.

Under the awning it is dry, and the sound is a steady, unhurried patter. The path has gone darker where it is wet, and there are two small puddles near the step.

Let the pillow take the whole weight of your head. Now feel your whole body at once, lying here, being held up.

The earth smells the way it does after a long dry spell. Somewhere in the hedge, a bird is sitting it out.

If you feel numb, that's a valid thing to feel. Nothing to fix. If you're sleepy, sit up a little. Or let the sleepiness be there.

Let your calves spread out and flatten. Let your breathing get slower without deciding to slow it.

Slower. Let the room get slightly further away.

Let them. Leave it there. Let your breathing do the rest.

You do not have to count them. Nothing needs deciding tonight. Let the dark be ordinary.

Use it at the end of a long day, not at the start of one.

Let the words go now, and take the quiet with you.