Sleep story · travel, anonymous
A hotel room somewhere — a slow story for the end of the day, when you want to finish something — for the hours after a late shift
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
The bathroom light is off, and the fan has finally stopped. The bed has been turned down, and the sheets are cool on the side you have not been lying on. There is a bottle of water on the bedside table with the cap already loosened.
The curtains are heavy and close properly, which is rarer than it should be. The pillow is slightly too soft, and you fold it in half, which fixes it. The room is on the fourth floor, and the window looks out onto a street with one lit shop.
Let your feet get heavy first. Heavier than they need to be. Let your forehead go cool and smooth.
Your eyelids can be too heavy to open, and that is fine. Let the space between your eyebrows smooth out.
Nobody in this city knows where you are, and that is restful. The carpet is the colour of weak coffee and absorbs every sound.
Let your tongue sit heavy in your mouth. Let your breathing get slower without deciding to slow it.
Feel your cheeks let go. Let your ribs stop working so hard.
The air conditioning makes a low sound that you will stop noticing within a minute. A tram goes past below, and you hear it before you see it.
Your fingers can stop doing anything at all. Let your thighs be as heavy as they want to be.
Your case is open on the luggage rack, half unpacked. There is a small card on the desk with the breakfast times on it, which do not matter tonight.
Your chest can be still now. Let your upper arms fall wherever gravity puts them.
If nothing much is happening, that's not a problem. Nothing much is often the point. If you feel numb, that's a valid thing to feel. Nothing to fix.
Let your thumbs rest where they landed. Feel the weight of your head on the pillow.
Slower now. The words can start to blur now.
Let the sound of this go soft at the edges. Stay with the weight of your body. Let the room get slightly further away.
Let the thoughts come and go without you getting up to answer. Just the weight. Let it all get further away.
Wanting to finish something is a better motivation than wanting to relax.
Let this be the last thing you listen to.
18 paragraphs, roughly 3 minutes read slowly aloud. Written for travel, anonymous.
If this story does not settle you, try A field under snow, when you cannot concentrate on anything else — for a night when you do not want to think, Sleep story: a lighthouse at the end of a long day, when you want to be left alone — for jet lag or A lighthouse at the end of a long day — a slow story for the end of the day, if you are doing this in the middle of the day — for a racing mind.