Sleep story · travel, anonymous
A hotel room somewhere (a sleep story), when you want to be left alone — for a restless night
A room you did not choose, in a city you do not have to know.
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
There is a small card on the desk with the breakfast times on it, which do not matter tonight. The bed has been turned down, and the sheets are cool on the side you have not been lying on. Nobody in this city knows where you are, and that is restful.
The air conditioning makes a low sound that you will stop noticing within a minute. The pillow is slightly too soft, and you fold it in half, which fixes it. The bathroom light is off, and the fan has finally stopped.
Your jaw can drop slightly. Let your teeth part. Let your ribs stop working so hard.
Let your lower back sink down into the mattress. Let your toes stop holding on to anything.
There is a bottle of water on the bedside table with the cap already loosened. The room is on the fourth floor, and the window looks out onto a street with one lit shop.
Let your forearms get heavy and warm. Let your breathing get slower without deciding to slow it.
If your mind is quiet, don't grab at it. Quiet comes and goes too. Your mind will leave about a hundred times. Come back about a hundred times.
Let the back of your neck lengthen out. Your elbows can stop being hinges for now.
You can stop listening properly. Leave it there.
Let them. They will find their own way out. Just the dark.
Nothing here asks anything of you socially.
Goodnight. There is nothing left to do.
12 paragraphs, roughly 2 minutes read slowly aloud. Written for travel, anonymous.
If this story does not settle you, try A lighthouse at the end of a long day, after eating too much — for a racing mind, A hotel room somewhere, when you are somewhere unfamiliar — for jet lag or The night train, when you have just finished work — for a night when you do not want to think.