Sleep story: a bus at night, on a low-energy

The story, in full

Your ticket is on the seat beside you, already used. You are on the top deck of the last bus, in the front seat, with the whole window to yourself. The bus stops and starts with a slow, heavy movement.

Outside, someone is walking a dog that does not want to be out. The driver takes the corners slowly, as if the bus were full. You do not have to get off for another twenty minutes.

Let your upper arms fall wherever gravity puts them. Your fingers can stop doing anything at all.

Feel the weight of the blanket on your legs. Notice the places where your body touches the bed, and let them be heavy.

A streetlight passes across the ceiling every few seconds. The lights inside are the dim blue kind that buses use at night.

Let the pillow take the whole weight of your head. Let the back of your neck lengthen out.

Feel your belly rise and fall without any help from you. Let your shoulder blades spread out and drop.

There is a long stretch of road ahead with nothing on it. The city goes past below you, shopfronts and bus stops and people waiting for other buses.

Notice any part of you that wants this to be over. Your mind will leave about a hundred times. Come back about a hundred times.

Let your toes stop holding on to anything. Feel one shoulder go heavy, then the other.

Let it all get further away. Softer.

Let them. Let the next part go past without you. Almost nothing to do now.

Low-energy afternoons are what this was written for.

No more sentences. Just the weight of you in the bed.

14 paragraphs, roughly 2 minutes read slowly aloud. Written for travel, anonymous.