Sleep story: a lighthouse at the end of a long day, when you want to be left alone — for jet lag

The wind is doing a low, steady thing against the glass. The light goes out across the water and comes back, and goes out again. The lighthouse will keep turning whether you watch it or not.

Your coat is on the hook by the door, still wet at the shoulders. The lighthouse turns once every fifteen seconds, and you have stopped counting it. There is a logbook open on the table with the last entry in someone else's handwriting.

Let your forehead go cool and smooth. Your chest can be still now.

Feel your wrists loosen. Let your thighs be as heavy as they want to be.

The room at the top is small, round and warm, with a kettle on a ring. The tea in your hands is too hot to drink and you are just holding it.

Let your upper arms fall wherever gravity puts them. Let your feet get heavy first. Heavier than they need to be.

Let your toes stop holding on to anything. Let the pillow take the whole weight of your head.

Below, the sea is doing what it does at night, which is mostly nothing. The window is thick and slightly green at the edges.

Your jaw can drop slightly. Let your teeth part. Let everything you were holding today stay on the floor beside the bed.

There is a chair pulled up to the window that fits exactly one person. A ship passes in the distance with its lights on, and then it does not.

Let your tongue sit heavy in your mouth. Notice how much of you has already stopped moving.

You might be planning something. Notice the planning, then come back. If your mind is quiet, don't grab at it. Quiet comes and goes too.

Now feel your whole body at once, lying here, being held up. Let the back of your neck lengthen out.

Let the dark be ordinary. Stay with the weight of your body.

Let them. Let each breath be a little smaller than the last. You can stop listening properly.

Let the room get slightly further away. They will find their own way out. Let the breath be the only thing you are doing.

Nothing here asks anything of you socially.

I will stop here. The quiet will carry on without the words.