Sleep story · quiet, home
The house after everyone is asleep — a slow story for the end of the day, if you are sceptical about all of this — for a racing mind
The hour when the house belongs to nobody and nothing needs doing.
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
Outside, a car goes past and its headlights sweep across the ceiling, then are gone. The curtains are not quite closed, and there is a thin line of streetlight along the wall. Everything in the room is exactly where it was left.
There is a chair by the window that nobody sits in during the day. The floorboards have stopped creaking because nobody is walking on them. The clock in the hallway ticks slightly behind the one in the kitchen.
Let the mattress take all of it. Let your calves spread out and flatten.
Your ankles can go loose now. Feel the weight of your head on the pillow.
There is nothing left on the list for today. The lamp beside you is the only light left on in the whole house.
Notice your hips, wide and settled. Let your thumbs rest where they landed.
Notice how much of you has already stopped moving. Let everything you were holding today stay on the floor beside the bed.
A glass of water sits on the table, half finished. The radiator clicks once as it cools down.
Now feel your whole body at once, lying here, being held up. Feel your cheeks let go.
Everyone went to bed an hour ago, and the house has stopped making the sounds it makes during the day. The fridge hums on and off in the kitchen, and that is the loudest thing in the building.
Let your toes stop holding on to anything. Feel the top of your head relax into the pillow.
If you've lost track of where we were, you haven't lost anything important. If your mind is quiet, don't grab at it. Quiet comes and goes too.
Let your breathing get slower without deciding to slow it. Let the space between your eyebrows smooth out.
Slower now. Leave it there.
Let them. Let the thoughts come and go without you getting up to answer. Just the breath.
Let each breath be a little smaller than the last. The words can start to blur now. Let the sound of this go soft at the edges.
Scepticism is welcome. You do not have to believe anything for this to work.
There is nothing more to follow. Let the rest happen on its own.
18 paragraphs, roughly 3 minutes read slowly aloud. Written for quiet, home.
If this story does not settle you, try A lake before dawn — a slow story for the end of the day, before you go back to something hard — for waking too early, The house after everyone is asleep — a slow story for the end of the day, when you are waiting for something — for winding down or Sleep story: a caravan by the sea, when nothing else has worked today — for jet lag.