An attic room — a slow story for the end of the day, when you are not in the mood — for jet lag

The radiator is small and makes a ticking sound as it cools. The rain changes intensity every few minutes and never quite stops. The roof is holding, and the rain is outside, and that is the whole arrangement.

The lamp is on the floor beside the bed because there is no room for a table. The air up here is warmer than downstairs and smells of old wood. The bed is pushed into the low corner, which makes it feel like a den.

Now feel your whole body at once, lying here, being held up. Let your forehead go cool and smooth.

Feel the weight of your head on the pillow. Let the back of your neck lengthen out.

There is a box of things under the eaves that nobody has opened in years. The rain on the roof tiles is much closer and louder up here than anywhere else in the house.

Let your toes stop holding on to anything. Let your hands be completely still.

Let your feet get heavy first. Heavier than they need to be. Let your calves spread out and flatten.

The room is in the roof, and the ceiling slopes so steeply that you have to duck near the window. The floorboards are bare and slightly uneven, and one of them always creaks.

Your eyelids can be too heavy to open, and that is fine. Feel the top of your head relax into the pillow.

A carrier bag of shopping is still on the chair, unpacked. There is a dormer window with a deep sill, and a mug left on it from last night.

Notice how much of you has already stopped moving. Let your upper arms fall wherever gravity puts them.

If nothing much is happening, that's not a problem. Nothing much is often the point. Notice if you're being hard on yourself about any of this.

Let the mattress take all of it. Your fingers can stop doing anything at all.

Nothing here needs following closely. Stay.

Let the sound of this go soft at the edges. Slower. Slower now.

You can stop listening properly. Let the room get slightly further away. You do not have to count them.

Not being in the mood is a normal starting point.

That is the end of the story. Sleep is the next part, and it does not need instructions.