A library at closing time — a slow story for the end of the day, when the weather has kept you inside — for a racing mind

The story, in full

The air smells of paper, dust and floor polish. Someone is pushing a trolley two rows away, and you can hear each wheel separately. Your own book is heavy in your hands, and you have stopped reading it.

Everything here will still be here tomorrow. The library closed twenty minutes ago, and the staff are working along the far shelves, switching off sections. The windows are dark enough now to reflect the room back at you.

Let your tongue sit heavy in your mouth. Your elbows can stop being hinges for now.

Let your toes stop holding on to anything. Let the back of your neck lengthen out.

The last of the day's light is going out of the high windows. The clock above the door is the old kind, with a second hand that moves in small jumps.

Notice how much of you has already stopped moving. Your fingers can stop doing anything at all.

Feel your belly rise and fall without any help from you. Let your calves spread out and flatten.

The carpet has flattened every sound in the building down to nothing. There is a trolley of returned books beside the desk, waiting to be put back.

If you feel restless, that's a feeling, not a failure. If nothing much is happening, that's not a problem. Nothing much is often the point.

Feel the top of your head relax into the pillow. Let your forearms get heavy and warm.

Let them. Let the next part go past without you.

You do not have to count them. Softer. Let the dark be ordinary.

Bad weather is a decent excuse to stay in and do this.

There is nothing more to follow. Let the rest happen on its own.

14 paragraphs, roughly 2 minutes read slowly aloud. Written for quiet, books.