Sleep story: an attic room, when you have been on screens all day — for winding down

The story, in full

The rain on the roof tiles is much closer and louder up here than anywhere else in the house. The lamp is on the floor beside the bed because there is no room for a table. 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. The roof is holding, and the rain is outside, and that is the whole arrangement. The air up here is warmer than downstairs and smells of old wood.

Let your upper arms fall wherever gravity puts them. Feel your heels sink a little into the mattress.

Your jaw can drop slightly. Let your teeth part. Let your tongue sit heavy in your mouth.

The radiator is small and makes a ticking sound as it cools. The floorboards are bare and slightly uneven, and one of them always creaks.

Let the back of your neck lengthen out. Feel your cheeks let go.

Let your hands be completely still. Your ankles can go loose now.

There is a box of things under the eaves that nobody has opened in years. The rain changes intensity every few minutes and never quite stops.

Notice the moment you realise you've drifted. That moment is the whole skill. You might be planning something. Notice the planning, then come back.

Now feel your whole body at once, lying here, being held up. Feel your wrists loosen.

Stay with the weight of your body. Just the breath.

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

After a day of screens, the eyes and the shoulders need this first.

Let everything get quiet, including this.

14 paragraphs, roughly 2 minutes read slowly aloud. Written for cozy, rain.