Sleep story: a bus at night, on a day that started badly — for jet lag

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. The lights inside are the dim blue kind that buses use at night.

There are four other people downstairs and nobody up here. You do not have to get off for another twenty minutes. A streetlight passes across the ceiling every few seconds.

Let your breathing get slower without deciding to slow it. Let your toes stop holding on to anything.

Let the mattress take all of it. Feel your heels sink a little into the mattress.

There is a long stretch of road ahead with nothing on it. The heating comes through the floor and makes your feet warm.

Let your palms open if they were closed. Let your lower back sink down into the mattress.

Let your tongue sit heavy in your mouth. Feel your belly rise and fall without any help from you.

The driver takes the corners slowly, as if the bus were full. Your ticket is on the seat beside you, already used.

Feel one shoulder go heavy, then the other. Feel the top of your head relax into the pillow.

The bus stops and starts with a slow, heavy movement. You are on the top deck of the last bus, in the front seat, with the whole window to yourself.

Let your upper arms fall wherever gravity puts them. Your elbows can stop being hinges for now.

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

Let your thumbs rest where they landed. Let everything you were holding today stay on the floor beside the bed.

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.

If you've lost track of where we were, you haven't lost anything important. Notice the moment you realise you've drifted. That moment is the whole skill.

Let your shoulder blades spread out and drop. Feel the weight of the blanket on your legs.

Almost nothing to do now. Let them.

Let your attention settle somewhere low, like your feet. Slower now. Let the room get slightly further away.

They will find their own way out. You can stop listening properly. Nothing here needs following closely.

A day that started badly does not have to stay that way.

Let the words go now, and take the quiet with you.