A lighthouse at the end of a long day, when you are waiting for something — for a restless night

The story, in full

There is a chair pulled up to the window that fits exactly one person. The lighthouse will keep turning whether you watch it or not. The light goes out across the water and comes back, and goes out again.

The window is thick and slightly green at the edges. The wind is doing a low, steady thing against the glass. The tea in your hands is too hot to drink and you are just holding it.

Let the mattress take all of it. Feel the top of your head relax into the pillow.

Feel your cheeks let go. Let your toes stop holding on to anything.

Your coat is on the hook by the door, still wet at the shoulders. The room at the top is small, round and warm, with a kettle on a ring.

Let your thumbs rest where they landed. Let your ribs stop working so hard.

Let your upper arms fall wherever gravity puts them. Feel one shoulder go heavy, then the other.

A ship passes in the distance with its lights on, and then it does not. Below, the sea is doing what it does at night, which is mostly nothing.

Let your hands be completely still. Let the back of your neck lengthen out.

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

Now feel your whole body at once, lying here, being held up. Feel the weight of the blanket on your legs.

You might be planning something. Notice the planning, then come back. If a worry shows up, name it quietly and let it sit beside you.

Your elbows can stop being hinges for now. Let everything you were holding today stay on the floor beside the bed.

Let the quiet be boring. Just the weight.

Nothing needs deciding tonight. Leave it there. Let each breath be a little smaller than the last.

Let the thoughts come and go without you getting up to answer. Almost nothing to do now. Stay.

Waiting is dead time you can spend on this instead.

Goodnight. There is nothing left to do.

18 paragraphs, roughly 3 minutes read slowly aloud. Written for sea, still.