Sleep story · cozy, rain
Sleep story: an attic room, when you need something unremarkable — for waking too early
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 air up here is warmer than downstairs and smells of old wood. The lamp is on the floor beside the bed because there is no room for a table. The roof is holding, and the rain is outside, and that is the whole arrangement.
There is a dormer window with a deep sill, and a mug left on it from last night. The floorboards are bare and slightly uneven, and one of them always creaks. The radiator is small and makes a ticking sound as it cools.
Feel the weight of the blanket on your legs. Let your forearms get heavy and warm.
Let your tongue sit heavy in your mouth. Notice the places where your body touches the bed, and let them be heavy.
The rain on the roof tiles is much closer and louder up here than anywhere else in the house. The room is in the roof, and the ceiling slopes so steeply that you have to duck near the window.
Let your lower back sink down into the mattress. Feel the weight of your head on the pillow.
Let your upper arms fall wherever gravity puts them. Notice how much of you has already stopped moving.
A carrier bag of shopping is still on the chair, unpacked. The bed is pushed into the low corner, which makes it feel like a den.
Let your breathing get slower without deciding to slow it. Let your forehead go cool and smooth.
The rain changes intensity every few minutes and never quite stops. There is a box of things under the eaves that nobody has opened in years.
Feel one shoulder go heavy, then the other. Your elbows can stop being hinges for now.
Your mind will leave about a hundred times. Come back about a hundred times. Notice if your attention is in the future. Bring it back to the room.
Feel your belly rise and fall without any help from you. Let your calves spread out and flatten.
Nothing needs deciding tonight. Nothing here needs following closely.
Let the quiet be boring. Let the thoughts come and go without you getting up to answer. Let the breath be the only thing you are doing.
You do not have to count them. Let the dark be ordinary. Just the weight.
Nothing dramatic happens here, and that is deliberate.
No more sentences. Just the weight of you in the bed.
18 paragraphs, roughly 3 minutes read slowly aloud. Written for cozy, rain.
If this story does not settle you, try A bus at night — a slow story for the end of the day, when you are somewhere unfamiliar — for a racing mind, Sleep story: the house after everyone is asleep, when you want something simple — for the hours after a late shift or A garden in the rain, when you have more time than usual — for a night when you do not want to think.