Sleep story · travel, cozy
The night train (a sleep story), on a day that started badly — for winding down
Somewhere between two cities, in the dark, where nobody needs anything from you.
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
There is one other person in this carriage, four rows up, asleep with a coat over their knees. Outside, the fields go past without anything in them you need to see. The window is cool against the side of your face.
The rhythm underneath you is steady enough to lean on. The lights along the aisle are dimmed to the colour of weak tea. Somewhere ahead of you, a door opens and closes with a soft, deliberate sound.
Let your hands be completely still. Let your upper arms fall wherever gravity puts them.
Let your toes stop holding on to anything. Let your shoulder blades spread out and drop.
Every so often the wheels change their note as they cross a join in the rail. Your bag is wedged under the seat in front, out of the way of your feet.
Your eyelids can be too heavy to open, and that is fine. Let everything you were holding today stay on the floor beside the bed.
Your chest can be still now. Let your thighs be as heavy as they want to be.
A station passes without stopping — a platform, a lamp, three empty benches, then dark again. The train left a quarter of an hour ago, and the carriage has already settled into its own quiet.
Let your thumbs rest where they landed. Your fingers can stop doing anything at all.
The seat reclines one notch further than you expected it to. The heating is on low, and the air smells faintly of clean metal and old upholstery.
Now feel your whole body at once, lying here, being held up. Feel one shoulder go heavy, then the other.
Notice the difference between a thought and the space around it. Notice any urge to check something. You can wait two more minutes.
Feel the weight of the blanket on your legs. Let the space between your eyebrows smooth out.
You do not have to count them. Just the breath.
Let them. Let the sound of this go soft at the edges. Let it all get further away.
Let the room get slightly further away. Let the quiet be boring. Let the thoughts come and go without you getting up to answer.
A day that started badly does not have to stay that way.
Let everything get quiet, including this.
18 paragraphs, roughly 3 minutes read slowly aloud. Written for travel, cozy.