Sleep story · cozy, rain
An attic room (a sleep story), when the weather has kept you inside — for waking too early
Sloping ceiling, rain on the roof a foot above your head.
Reading it yourself. Back to the audio version.
The radiator is small and makes a ticking sound as it cools. The rain changes intensity every few minutes and never quite stops. The bed is pushed into the low corner, which makes it feel like a den.
The air up here is warmer than downstairs and smells of old wood. There is a dormer window with a deep sill, and a mug left on it from last night. There is a box of things under the eaves that nobody has opened in years.
Feel the top of your head relax into the pillow. Feel your cheeks let go.
Let your forehead go cool and smooth. Let your toes stop holding on to anything.
The floorboards are bare and slightly uneven, and one of them always creaks. The rain on the roof tiles is much closer and louder up here than anywhere else in the house.
Let your thumbs rest where they landed. Let the mattress take all of it.
Let your calves spread out and flatten. Your chest can be still now.
A carrier bag of shopping is still on the chair, unpacked. The room is in the roof, and the ceiling slopes so steeply that you have to duck near the window.
Feel one shoulder go heavy, then the other. Let your hands be completely still.
The lamp is on the floor beside the bed because there is no room for a table. The roof is holding, and the rain is outside, and that is the whole arrangement.
Let your tongue sit heavy in your mouth. Feel your belly rise and fall without any help from you.
If nothing much is happening, that's not a problem. Nothing much is often the point. Notice if you're waiting for something to happen. Nothing is scheduled.
Your ankles can go loose now. Now feel your whole body at once, lying here, being held up.
The words can start to blur now. Nothing needs deciding tonight.
Stay with the weight of your body. Let the quiet be boring. Stay.
Let the room get slightly further away. Slower now. Let each breath be a little smaller than the last.
Bad weather is a decent excuse to stay in and do this.
I will stop here. The quiet will carry on without the words.