Sleep story · quiet, books
A library at closing time — a slow story for the end of the day, if you are doing this in the middle of the day — for a night when you do not want to think
The last hour, when the lights go down row by row.
Reading it yourself. Back to the audio version.
Your own book is heavy in your hands, and you have stopped reading it. There is a trolley of returned books beside the desk, waiting to be put back. The windows are dark enough now to reflect the room back at you.
The carpet has flattened every sound in the building down to nothing. Someone is pushing a trolley two rows away, and you can hear each wheel separately. The air smells of paper, dust and floor polish.
Feel the top of your head relax into the pillow. Your elbows can stop being hinges for now.
Feel the weight of the blanket on your legs. Feel the back of your knees soften into the bed.
The library closed twenty minutes ago, and the staff are working along the far shelves, switching off sections. The clock above the door is the old kind, with a second hand that moves in small jumps.
Feel your belly rise and fall without any help from you. Your eyelids can be too heavy to open, and that is fine.
Your ankles can go loose now. Let your toes stop holding on to anything.
The reading room you are in has one lamp left on, and it is the one above your table. A book lies open on the next table, face down, which is technically not allowed.
Let your ribs stop working so hard. Let your shoulder blades spread out and drop.
Everything here will still be here tomorrow. The last of the day's light is going out of the high windows.
Feel one shoulder go heavy, then the other. Let your hands be completely still.
Notice if your attention is in the future. Bring it back to the room. If you feel numb, that's a valid thing to feel. Nothing to fix.
Feel your heartbeat somewhere far away. Feel your wrists loosen.
Let your breathing do the rest. Just the breath.
Just the weight. Follow the breath out, and let the next one arrive by itself. Nothing needs deciding tonight.
Stay. Nothing here needs following closely. Let your attention settle somewhere low, like your feet.
Midday is an underrated time for this.
I will stop here. The quiet will carry on without the words.