Sleep story: a bus at night, when you have woken up too early — for waking too early

The story, in full

You do not have to get off for another twenty minutes. Your ticket is on the seat beside you, already used. Outside, someone is walking a dog that does not want to be out.

A streetlight passes across the ceiling every few seconds. The heating comes through the floor and makes your feet warm. The driver takes the corners slowly, as if the bus were full.

Let your upper arms fall wherever gravity puts them. Your eyelids can be too heavy to open, and that is fine.

Let your hands be completely still. Now feel your whole body at once, lying here, being held up.

The city goes past below you, shopfronts and bus stops and people waiting for other buses. There are four other people downstairs and nobody up here.

Let the space between your eyebrows smooth out. Your fingers can stop doing anything at all.

If a song is stuck in your head, let it play in the background. If you feel restless, that's a feeling, not a failure.

Your ankles can go loose now. Feel your heels sink a little into the mattress.

The words can start to blur now. Follow the breath out, and let the next one arrive by itself.

Stay. Sleep. You do not have to count them.

Waking too early is a specific kind of frustrating. This helps with the frustration.

There is nothing more to follow. Let the rest happen on its own.

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