An attic room (a sleep story), when you are not sure this will work — for the hours after a late shift

The roof is holding, and the rain is outside, and that is the whole arrangement. The floorboards are bare and slightly uneven, and one of them always creaks. The rain changes intensity every few minutes and never quite stops.

The room is in the roof, and the ceiling slopes so steeply that you have to duck near the window. The rain on the roof tiles is much closer and louder up here than anywhere else in the house. The lamp is on the floor beside the bed because there is no room for a table.

Your elbows can stop being hinges for now. Feel the back of your knees soften into the bed.

Let your breathing get slower without deciding to slow it. Feel your heartbeat somewhere far away.

The radiator is small and makes a ticking sound as it cools. A carrier bag of shopping is still on the chair, unpacked.

Let the space between your eyebrows smooth out. Let your feet get heavy first. Heavier than they need to be.

If your body wants to move, let it move, then come back. If you're counting the minutes, that's fine. Count them and come back.

Let your thumbs rest where they landed. Feel your belly rise and fall without any help from you.

Stay. Let your attention settle somewhere low, like your feet.

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

Not being sure it will work is a perfectly good reason to try it once.

Let this be the last thing you listen to.