Sleep story · cozy, rain
Sleep story: an attic room, when you have been on screens all day — for a night when you do not want to think
Sloping ceiling, rain on the roof a foot above your head.
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
The floorboards are bare and slightly uneven, and one of them always creaks. The lamp is on the floor beside the bed because there is no room for a table. The radiator is small and makes a ticking sound as it cools.
The bed is pushed into the low corner, which makes it feel like a den. The room is in the roof, and the ceiling slopes so steeply that you have to duck near the window. A carrier bag of shopping is still on the chair, unpacked.
Let your thumbs rest where they landed. Your fingers can stop doing anything at all.
Let your hands be completely still. Let the back of your neck lengthen out.
The rain on the roof tiles is much closer and louder up here than anywhere else in the house. There is a box of things under the eaves that nobody has opened in years.
Feel your heels sink a little into the mattress. Let your breathing get slower without deciding to slow it.
Your elbows can stop being hinges for now. Let your ribs stop working so hard.
The roof is holding, and the rain is outside, and that is the whole arrangement. The rain changes intensity every few minutes and never quite stops.
Notice if you're waiting for something to happen. Nothing is scheduled. Notice whether you're breathing or holding. Start breathing again.
Feel one shoulder go heavy, then the other. Let your forehead go cool and smooth.
Nothing here needs following closely. Leave it there.
Let the sound of this go soft at the edges. Slower now. Let the thoughts come and go without you getting up to answer.
After a day of screens, the eyes and the shoulders need this first.
The end. Sleep well.
14 paragraphs, roughly 2 minutes read slowly aloud. Written for cozy, rain.
If this story does not settle you, try Sleep story: a lake before dawn, when you have already had a long week — for a restless night, A lighthouse at the end of a long day (a sleep story), on a low-energy afternoon — for waking too early or A lake before dawn (a sleep story), after a long day — for jet lag.