Sleep story · cozy, rain
An attic room, when you are doing this for the first time — for a restless night
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 floorboards are bare and slightly uneven, and one of them always creaks. The room is in the roof, and the ceiling slopes so steeply that you have to duck near the window. The lamp is on the floor beside the bed because there is no room for a table.
The radiator is small and makes a ticking sound as it cools. The rain on the roof tiles is much closer and louder up here than anywhere else in the house. There is a dormer window with a deep sill, and a mug left on it from last night.
Your elbows can stop being hinges for now. Your fingers can stop doing anything at all.
Let the back of your neck lengthen out. Let the space between your eyebrows smooth out.
A carrier bag of shopping is still on the chair, unpacked. The bed is pushed into the low corner, which makes it feel like a den.
Feel your heartbeat somewhere far away. Let your forehead go cool and smooth.
Your ankles can go loose now. Now feel your whole body at once, lying here, being held up.
The roof is holding, and the rain is outside, and that is the whole arrangement. There is a box of things under the eaves that nobody has opened in years.
Notice anything you're holding onto from earlier today. Your mind will leave about a hundred times. Come back about a hundred times.
Let your palms open if they were closed. Your chest can be still now.
Sleep. Let each breath be a little smaller than the last.
Let it all get further away. Let the dark be ordinary. You do not have to count them.
If this is your first go, stay with the plainest version of the instructions.
No more sentences. Just the weight of you in the bed.
14 paragraphs, roughly 2 minutes read slowly aloud. Written for cozy, rain.