An attic room — a slow story for the end of the day, when your attention is scattered — for winding down

The floorboards are bare and slightly uneven, and one of them always creaks. A carrier bag of shopping is still on the chair, unpacked. The rain changes intensity every few minutes and never quite stops.

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. The air up here is warmer than downstairs and smells of old wood.

Notice your hips, wide and settled. Feel your wrists loosen.

Your fingers can stop doing anything at all. Your jaw can drop slightly. Let your teeth part.

The rain on the roof tiles is much closer and louder up here than anywhere else in the house. The room is in the roof, and the ceiling slopes so steeply that you have to duck near the window.

Feel your heartbeat somewhere far away. Your ankles can go loose now.

Notice any part of you that wants this to be over. If you feel restless, that's a feeling, not a failure.

Feel your belly rise and fall without any help from you. Let your upper arms fall wherever gravity puts them.

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

Let the sound of this go soft at the edges. Nothing needs deciding tonight. Let them.

Scattered attention is the raw material, not an obstacle.

Goodnight. There is nothing left to do.