Sleep story · cozy, rain
An attic room — a slow story for the end of the day, when you have already had a long week — for a racing mind
Sloping ceiling, rain on the roof a foot above your head.
Lights off. Press begin and let the story read itself to you, at the pace of sleep.
Screen on or off — we suggest dimming it, or simply closing your eyes after the first paragraph.
The story, in full
The radiator is small and makes a ticking sound as it cools. There is a dormer window with a deep sill, and a mug left on it from last night. The rain changes intensity every few minutes and never quite stops.
There is a box of things under the eaves that nobody has opened in years. 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 your heels sink a little into the mattress. Let your lower back sink down into the mattress.
Let your calves spread out and flatten. Feel the weight of the blanket on your legs.
The air up here is warmer than downstairs and smells of old wood. The floorboards are bare and slightly uneven, and one of them always creaks.
Let your shoulder blades spread out and drop. Your chest can be still now.
Let the space between your eyebrows smooth out. Your fingers can stop doing anything at all.
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 feet get heavy first. Heavier than they need to be. Notice how much of you has already stopped moving.
The bed is pushed into the low corner, which makes it feel like a den. The lamp is on the floor beside the bed because there is no room for a table.
Notice your hips, wide and settled. Let your breathing get slower without deciding to slow it.
If you feel emotional, you don't have to explain it to anyone, including yourself. Notice if you've been frowning at your own thoughts.
Your elbows can stop being hinges for now. Let your forearms get heavy and warm.
Leave it there. Let the thoughts come and go without you getting up to answer.
Let your attention settle somewhere low, like your feet. Let them. Let it all get further away.
Let the dark be ordinary. Stay. You can stop listening properly.
Long weeks are cumulative. This is a small subtraction.
No more sentences. Just the weight of you in the bed.
18 paragraphs, roughly 3 minutes read slowly aloud. Written for cozy, rain.
If this story does not settle you, try A garden in the rain (a sleep story), when the house is busy — for waking too early, Sleep story: a library at closing time, when you only have a few minutes — for jet lag or The night train (a sleep story), when you want to finish something — for waking too early.