Sleep story: a bus at night, if you are tired of apps — for jet lag

The story, in full

A streetlight passes across the ceiling every few seconds. There are four other people downstairs and nobody up here. Your ticket is on the seat beside you, already used.

The driver takes the corners slowly, as if the bus were full. The lights inside are the dim blue kind that buses use at night. There is a long stretch of road ahead with nothing on it.

Let your calves spread out and flatten. Let your tongue sit heavy in your mouth.

Notice your hips, wide and settled. Your elbows can stop being hinges for now.

The bus stops and starts with a slow, heavy movement. The heating comes through the floor and makes your feet warm.

Let your breathing get slower without deciding to slow it. Feel your cheeks let go.

Feel the weight of your head on the pillow. Let your hands be completely still.

The city goes past below you, shopfronts and bus stops and people waiting for other buses. Outside, someone is walking a dog that does not want to be out.

Your chest can be still now. Let your feet get heavy first. Heavier than they need to be.

You do not have to get off for another twenty minutes. You are on the top deck of the last bus, in the front seat, with the whole window to yourself.

Feel one shoulder go heavy, then the other. Let the mattress take all of it.

If you feel restless, that's a feeling, not a failure. Notice any tension that arrived while you weren't looking.

Let your thighs be as heavy as they want to be. Let your ribs stop working so hard.

Nothing needs deciding tonight. Stay.

Just the dark. Leave it there. Nothing here needs following closely.

Follow the breath out, and let the next one arrive by itself. You do not have to count them. Just the breath.

No account, no streak, no notification asking how you feel.

The room is dark, the day is finished, and nothing is required of you.

18 paragraphs, roughly 3 minutes read slowly aloud. Written for travel, anonymous.