A lighthouse at the end of a long day (a sleep

The story, in full

Your coat is on the hook by the door, still wet at the shoulders. There is a logbook open on the table with the last entry in someone else's handwriting. The lighthouse will keep turning whether you watch it or not.

The room at the top is small, round and warm, with a kettle on a ring. The tea in your hands is too hot to drink and you are just holding it. The wind is doing a low, steady thing against the glass.

Let your thumbs rest where they landed. Your chest can be still now.

Let your palms open if they were closed. Your fingers can stop doing anything at all.

Below, the sea is doing what it does at night, which is mostly nothing. The lighthouse turns once every fifteen seconds, and you have stopped counting it.

Let your shoulder blades spread out and drop. Let your toes stop holding on to anything.

If a worry shows up, name it quietly and let it sit beside you. If you feel restless, that's a feeling, not a failure.

Let everything you were holding today stay on the floor beside the bed. Feel the weight of your head on the pillow.

The words can start to blur now. Let your breathing do the rest.

Slower now. Leave it there. Just the breath.

Five minutes here is cheaper than an hour of grinding.

Let the words go now, and take the quiet with you.

12 paragraphs, roughly 2 minutes read slowly aloud. Written for sea, still.