Sleep story · quiet, home
The house after everyone is asleep, when you have woken up too early — for a restless night
The hour when the house belongs to nobody and nothing needs doing.
Reading it yourself. Back to the audio version.
The radiator clicks once as it cools down. The curtains are not quite closed, and there is a thin line of streetlight along the wall. The fridge hums on and off in the kitchen, and that is the loudest thing in the building.
A glass of water sits on the table, half finished. The floorboards have stopped creaking because nobody is walking on them. Outside, a car goes past and its headlights sweep across the ceiling, then are gone.
Notice your hips, wide and settled. Let your toes stop holding on to anything.
Your eyelids can be too heavy to open, and that is fine. Your elbows can stop being hinges for now.
The clock in the hallway ticks slightly behind the one in the kitchen. There is nothing left on the list for today.
Let your forehead go cool and smooth. Let your feet get heavy first. Heavier than they need to be.
Your ankles can go loose now. Feel the weight of the blanket on your legs.
There is a chair by the window that nobody sits in during the day. Everything in the room is exactly where it was left.
Notice any urge to check something. You can wait two more minutes. If a song is stuck in your head, let it play in the background.
Your jaw can drop slightly. Let your teeth part. Feel the back of your knees soften into the bed.
The words can start to blur now. Let the sound of this go soft at the edges.
Nothing needs deciding tonight. Slower now. They will find their own way out.
Waking too early is a specific kind of frustrating. This helps with the frustration.
No more sentences. Just the weight of you in the bed.