Sleep story: a library at closing time, when you have been putting it off — for jet lag

The story, in full

The air smells of paper, dust and floor polish. The reading room you are in has one lamp left on, and it is the one above your table. A book lies open on the next table, face down, which is technically not allowed.

The carpet has flattened every sound in the building down to nothing. The last of the day's light is going out of the high windows. The clock above the door is the old kind, with a second hand that moves in small jumps.

Feel the back of your knees soften into the bed. Feel the top of your head relax into the pillow.

Your fingers can stop doing anything at all. Let your feet get heavy first. Heavier than they need to be.

Your own book is heavy in your hands, and you have stopped reading it. The windows are dark enough now to reflect the room back at you.

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

Let your thumbs rest where they landed. Let the pillow take the whole weight of your head.

There is a trolley of returned books beside the desk, waiting to be put back. The library closed twenty minutes ago, and the staff are working along the far shelves, switching off sections.

Let your toes stop holding on to anything. Let your calves spread out and flatten.

Someone is pushing a trolley two rows away, and you can hear each wheel separately. Everything here will still be here tomorrow.

Let your upper arms fall wherever gravity puts them. Let everything you were holding today stay on the floor beside the bed.

If your mind is quiet, don't grab at it. Quiet comes and goes too. Notice if your attention is in the future. Bring it back to the room.

Let your lower back sink down into the mattress. Let your breathing get slower without deciding to slow it.

Let the room get slightly further away. You can stop listening properly.

Let each breath be a little smaller than the last. Almost nothing to do now. Follow the breath out, and let the next one arrive by itself.

The words can start to blur now. Just the dark. Let the quiet be boring.

You have been putting this off. Starting is the only step that matters.

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

18 paragraphs, roughly 3 minutes read slowly aloud. Written for quiet, books.