A kitchen late at night, when you have just finished work — for a night when you do not want to think

The story, in full

A plate dries on the rack with a slow drip every so often. There is a bowl of fruit nobody has touched since Tuesday. There is no reason to be awake, and no reason to move either.

The clock on the oven shows a time that feels later than it is. The tea towel is folded over the rail, still slightly damp. Someone upstairs turns over, and the ceiling creaks once.

Let your thighs be as heavy as they want to be. Feel the weight of your head on the pillow.

Notice your hips, wide and settled. Feel the back of your knees soften into the bed.

Through the window you can see the back garden, which is doing nothing at all. There is a cup of tea beside you that has gone past drinking temperature.

Let your forehead go cool and smooth. Let your toes stop holding on to anything.

If you're judging your performance, that's the same habit as judging everything else. If nothing much is happening, that's not a problem. Nothing much is often the point.

Let your palms open if they were closed. Let everything you were holding today stay on the floor beside the bed.

Let the sound of this go soft at the edges. Let it all get further away.

You can stop listening properly. Almost nothing to do now. Let the room get slightly further away.

The gap right after work is the easiest one to use.

I will stop here. The quiet will carry on without the words.

12 paragraphs, roughly 2 minutes read slowly aloud. Written for warm, home.