Sleep story · warm, winter
Sleep story: a fire dying down, when the weather has kept you inside — for a restless night
The last hour of a fire, when it stops being a fire and becomes warmth.
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
Somewhere in the house, a door closes and everything goes quiet again. The fire has stopped being flames and is now mostly red shapes that shift and settle. Every few minutes a piece of wood falls in on itself with a small collapse of sparks.
The logs beside the fireplace are down to the last two. The room has gone darker than you noticed, and the light is all low and orange. There is a smell of woodsmoke in the room that will still be there tomorrow.
Let your hands be completely still. Feel your heels sink a little into the mattress.
Let your toes stop holding on to anything. Feel your heartbeat somewhere far away.
There is a blanket over your legs that you did not consciously arrange. The window is black, and the glass is cold if you touch it.
Your eyelids can be too heavy to open, and that is fine. Let your shoulder blades spread out and drop.
Feel your belly rise and fall without any help from you. Feel your cheeks let go.
The dog is asleep on the rug, on the side nearest the heat. The heat reaches about a metre from the fire and stops.
Feel one shoulder go heavy, then the other. Let your thighs be as heavy as they want to be.
The fire will be out in half an hour and nobody needs to watch it happen. The ash in the grate is deep and soft and grey at the edges.
Let the mattress take all of it. Let your forearms get heavy and warm.
Somewhere in the house, a door closes and everything goes quiet again. There is a blanket over your legs that you did not consciously arrange.
Let the back of your neck lengthen out. Let your palms open if they were closed.
The logs beside the fireplace are down to the last two. The dog is asleep on the rug, on the side nearest the heat.
If you feel numb, that's a valid thing to feel. Nothing to fix. If you're sleepy, sit up a little. Or let the sleepiness be there.
Your elbows can stop being hinges for now. Notice how much of you has already stopped moving.
Just the breath. Softer.
You do not have to count them. Let the breath be the only thing you are doing. Stay with the weight of your body.
Let the dark be ordinary. Nothing needs deciding tonight. Just the dark.
Bad weather is a decent excuse to stay in and do this.
I will stop here. The quiet will carry on without the words.
21 paragraphs, roughly 3 minutes read slowly aloud. Written for warm, winter.
If this story does not settle you, try A kitchen late at night (a sleep story), when nothing else has worked today — for the hours after a late shift, A hotel room somewhere, on a low-energy afternoon — for a racing mind or A library at closing time — a slow story for the end of the day, when you have been meaning to start — for an overtired night.