The house after everyone is asleep — a slow story for the end of the day, if you are new to this — for the hours after a late shift

The story, in full

Everything in the room is exactly where it was left. A glass of water sits on the table, half finished. Outside, a car goes past and its headlights sweep across the ceiling, then are gone.

There is nothing left on the list for today. The clock in the hallway ticks slightly behind the one in the kitchen. There is a chair by the window that nobody sits in during the day.

Your eyelids can be too heavy to open, and that is fine. Feel your belly rise and fall without any help from you.

Let your hands be completely still. Now feel your whole body at once, lying here, being held up.

The curtains are not quite closed, and there is a thin line of streetlight along the wall. The floorboards have stopped creaking because nobody is walking on them.

Feel the weight of your head on the pillow. Notice how much of you has already stopped moving.

Let your forehead go cool and smooth. Let your lower back sink down into the mattress.

The fridge hums on and off in the kitchen, and that is the loudest thing in the building. Everyone went to bed an hour ago, and the house has stopped making the sounds it makes during the day.

Feel one shoulder go heavy, then the other. Let your feet get heavy first. Heavier than they need to be.

The radiator clicks once as it cools down. The lamp beside you is the only light left on in the whole house.

Let the pillow take the whole weight of your head. Let everything you were holding today stay on the floor beside the bed.

The floorboards have stopped creaking because nobody is walking on them. Everyone went to bed an hour ago, and the house has stopped making the sounds it makes during the day.

Let your shoulder blades spread out and drop. Feel the back of your knees soften into the bed.

A glass of water sits on the table, half finished. The lamp beside you is the only light left on in the whole house.

Your mind will leave about a hundred times. Come back about a hundred times. If your mind has wandered, that's not a mistake. Noticing is the practice.

Your chest can be still now. Let your tongue sit heavy in your mouth.

Just the dark. Let the thoughts come and go without you getting up to answer.

Slower. Let the sound of this go soft at the edges. Let it all get further away.

Leave it there. Let the breath be the only thing you are doing. The words can start to blur now.

Nothing here assumes you have done this before.

Let everything get quiet, including this.

21 paragraphs, roughly 4 minutes read slowly aloud. Written for quiet, home.