Sleep story · cozy, rain
An attic room — a slow story for the end of the day, when you are waiting for something — for the hours after a late shift
Sloping ceiling, rain on the roof a foot above your head.
Reading it yourself. Back to the audio version.
The lamp is on the floor beside the bed because there is no room for a table. There is a dormer window with a deep sill, and a mug left on it from last night. The room is in the roof, and the ceiling slopes so steeply that you have to duck near the window.
A carrier bag of shopping is still on the chair, unpacked. The floorboards are bare and slightly uneven, and one of them always creaks. The air up here is warmer than downstairs and smells of old wood.
Let the back of your neck lengthen out. Feel the weight of the blanket on your legs.
Feel the weight of your head on the pillow. Let your forearms get heavy and warm.
The rain on the roof tiles is much closer and louder up here than anywhere else in the house. The roof is holding, and the rain is outside, and that is the whole arrangement.
Let your breathing get slower without deciding to slow it. Let your palms open if they were closed.
Feel your wrists loosen. Let your ribs stop working so hard.
The bed is pushed into the low corner, which makes it feel like a den. There is a box of things under the eaves that nobody has opened in years.
Notice your hips, wide and settled. Let your hands be completely still.
The radiator is small and makes a ticking sound as it cools. The rain changes intensity every few minutes and never quite stops.
Let the space between your eyebrows smooth out. Let the pillow take the whole weight of your head.
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.
Your jaw can drop slightly. Let your teeth part. Feel your belly rise and fall without any help from you.
A carrier bag of shopping is still on the chair, unpacked. The lamp is on the floor beside the bed because there is no room for a table.
Notice the moment you realise you've drifted. That moment is the whole skill. Notice how quickly your mind labels things: good, bad, boring, nice.
Your eyelids can be too heavy to open, and that is fine. Feel your heels sink a little into the mattress.
Stay with the weight of your body. Just the weight.
Leave it there. Nothing needs deciding tonight. Let them.
Let the quiet be boring. You can stop listening properly. Softer.
Waiting is dead time you can spend on this instead.
Let the words go now, and take the quiet with you.