A lighthouse at the end of a long day — a slow story for the end of the day, when you need something unremarkable — for a racing mind

The story, in full

The wind is doing a low, steady thing against the glass. 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 window is thick and slightly green at the edges. The lighthouse will keep turning whether you watch it or not. Your coat is on the hook by the door, still wet at the shoulders.

Let the pillow take the whole weight of your head. Your fingers can stop doing anything at all.

Let your hands be completely still. Let your feet get heavy first. Heavier than they need to be.

There is a logbook open on the table with the last entry in someone else's handwriting. The lighthouse turns once every fifteen seconds, and you have stopped counting it.

Let your forearms get heavy and warm. Let your breathing get slower without deciding to slow it.

If you're counting the minutes, that's fine. Count them and come back. Notice if you're waiting for something to happen. Nothing is scheduled.

Notice how much of you has already stopped moving. Feel one shoulder go heavy, then the other.

Let the sound of this go soft at the edges. Let the quiet be boring.

Let them. You do not have to count them. Let the thoughts come and go without you getting up to answer.

Nothing dramatic happens here, and that is deliberate.

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

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