Sleep story: a lighthouse at the end of a long day, when you need something unremarkable — for a night when you do not want to think

The lighthouse will keep turning whether you watch it or not. A ship passes in the distance with its lights on, and then it does not. There is a logbook open on the table with the last entry in someone else's handwriting.

The wind is doing a low, steady thing against the glass. The window is thick and slightly green at the edges. Your coat is on the hook by the door, still wet at the shoulders.

Your chest can be still now. Let your breathing get slower without deciding to slow it.

Feel your heartbeat somewhere far away. Let your lower back sink down into the mattress.

Below, the sea is doing what it does at night, which is mostly nothing. The light goes out across the water and comes back, and goes out again.

Let your calves spread out and flatten. Feel your wrists loosen.

Your mind will leave about a hundred times. Come back about a hundred times. If nothing much is happening, that's not a problem. Nothing much is often the point.

Let your shoulder blades spread out and drop. Let the pillow take the whole weight of your head.

Slower. Let the sound of this go soft at the edges.

Let each breath be a little smaller than the last. Let your attention settle somewhere low, like your feet. Let them.

Nothing dramatic happens here, and that is deliberate.

Let everything get quiet, including this.