A library at closing time, when you have been on screens all day — for waking too early

A book lies open on the next table, face down, which is technically not allowed. The reading room you are in has one lamp left on, and it is the one above your table. There is a trolley of returned books beside the desk, waiting to be put back.

Someone is pushing a trolley two rows away, and you can hear each wheel separately. The clock above the door is the old kind, with a second hand that moves in small jumps. The windows are dark enough now to reflect the room back at you.

Feel your belly rise and fall without any help from you. Feel the top of your head relax into the pillow.

Now feel your whole body at once, lying here, being held up. Feel the back of your knees soften into the bed.

Your own book is heavy in your hands, and you have stopped reading it. The last of the day's light is going out of the high windows.

Your eyelids can be too heavy to open, and that is fine. Let your thighs be as heavy as they want to be.

Let the back of your neck lengthen out. Notice the places where your body touches the bed, and let them be heavy.

The air smells of paper, dust and floor polish. The library closed twenty minutes ago, and the staff are working along the far shelves, switching off sections.

Notice any tension that arrived while you weren't looking. Notice any part of you that wants this to be over.

Let your palms open if they were closed. Feel your wrists loosen.

Let the next part go past without you. Let each breath be a little smaller than the last.

Stay. Let the sound of this go soft at the edges. Just the breath.

After a day of screens, the eyes and the shoulders need this first.

That is the end of the story. Sleep is the next part, and it does not need instructions.