Sleep story · travel, cozy
The night train — a slow story for the end of the day, when you feel restless rather than tired — for a night when you do not want to think
Somewhere between two cities, in the dark, where nobody needs anything from you.
Reading it yourself. Back to the audio version.
The seat reclines one notch further than you expected it to. The lights along the aisle are dimmed to the colour of weak tea. The window is cool against the side of your face.
A station passes without stopping — a platform, a lamp, three empty benches, then dark again. The heating is on low, and the air smells faintly of clean metal and old upholstery. Outside, the fields go past without anything in them you need to see.
Let everything you were holding today stay on the floor beside the bed. Your chest can be still now.
Let your thumbs rest where they landed. Your ankles can go loose now.
The train left a quarter of an hour ago, and the carriage has already settled into its own quiet. 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. Your elbows can stop being hinges for now.
Let the space between your eyebrows smooth out. Feel one shoulder go heavy, then the other.
The rhythm underneath you is steady enough to lean on. Every so often the wheels change their note as they cross a join in the rail.
Let your palms open if they were closed. Notice how much of you has already stopped moving.
Somewhere ahead of you, a door opens and closes with a soft, deliberate sound. There is one other person in this carriage, four rows up, asleep with a coat over their knees.
Feel the weight of the blanket on your legs. Let your tongue sit heavy in your mouth.
Notice the tone of your own inner voice. Is it kind? Notice how you're sitting. Adjust if you need to. Then settle again.
Let your toes stop holding on to anything. Feel your heartbeat somewhere far away.
Slower. The words can start to blur now.
Stay. Let it all get further away. Sleep.
Let the quiet be boring. Stay with the weight of your body. Just the weight.
Restless is different from tired, and it needs a different approach.
There is nothing more to follow. Let the rest happen on its own.