Sleep story · rain, green
A garden in the rain — a slow story for the end of the day, if you are new to this — for winding down
Steady rain on leaves, and a chair under an awning that stays dry.
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 path has gone darker where it is wet, and there are two small puddles near the step. There is a wooden bench that nobody has sat on for an hour. Under the awning it is dry, and the sound is a steady, unhurried patter.
Water runs off the gutter in a thin, continuous line. The rain has settled into the kind that will last all afternoon without getting heavier. A snail is making its way along the bottom of the wall, going nowhere in particular.
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.
Let your tongue sit heavy in your mouth. Let your shoulder blades spread out and drop.
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.
Feel the back of your knees soften into the bed. Feel one shoulder go heavy, then the other.
Notice any tension that arrived while you weren't looking. If you're sleepy, sit up a little. Or let the sleepiness be there.
Now feel your whole body at once, lying here, being held up. Let your lower back sink down into the mattress.
Let it all get further away. Just the breath.
Leave it there. Slower now. Let them.
Nothing here assumes you have done this before.
That is the end of the story. Sleep is the next part, and it does not need instructions.
12 paragraphs, roughly 2 minutes read slowly aloud. Written for rain, green.
If this story does not settle you, try A bus at night (a sleep story), when you want to finish something — for a night when you do not want to think, Sleep story: a caravan by the sea, when nothing else has worked today — for a restless night or Sleep story: a library at closing time, when you are doing this for the first time — for an overtired night.