Sleep story · travel, cozy
The night train, when you have just finished work — 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
A station passes without stopping — a platform, a lamp, three empty benches, then dark again. Somewhere ahead of you, a door opens and closes with a soft, deliberate sound. The rhythm underneath you is steady enough to lean on.
Your bag is wedged under the seat in front, out of the way of your feet. 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.
Your chest can be still now. Let everything you were holding today stay on the floor beside the bed.
Your elbows can stop being hinges for now. Feel one shoulder go heavy, then the other.
The lights along the aisle are dimmed to the colour of weak tea. The train left a quarter of an hour ago, and the carriage has already settled into its own quiet.
Your jaw can drop slightly. Let your teeth part. Let your tongue sit heavy in your mouth.
Feel the top of your head relax into the pillow. Let the pillow take the whole weight of your head.
The window is cool against the side of your face. Every so often the wheels change their note as they cross a join in the rail.
Feel your cheeks let go. Feel your heels sink a little into the mattress.
The heating is on low, and the air smells faintly of clean metal and old upholstery. The seat reclines one notch further than you expected it to.
Let your thighs be as heavy as they want to be. Let your thumbs rest where they landed.
A station passes without stopping — a platform, a lamp, three empty benches, then dark again. Outside, the fields go past without anything in them you need to see.
Notice the places where your body touches the bed, and let them be heavy. Let the mattress take all of it.
The lights along the aisle are dimmed to the colour of weak tea. The heating is on low, and the air smells faintly of clean metal and old upholstery.
Notice anything you're holding onto from earlier today. Notice if you're being hard on yourself about any of this.
Let the back of your neck lengthen out. Let your breathing get slower without deciding to slow it.
Let it all get further away. Stay with the weight of your body.
Slower. Let the thoughts come and go without you getting up to answer. Let the sound of this go soft at the edges.
Let the quiet be boring. They will find their own way out. You do not have to count them.
The gap right after work is the easiest one to use.
No more sentences. Just the weight of you in the bed.
21 paragraphs, roughly 4 minutes read slowly aloud. Written for travel, cozy.
If this story does not settle you, try A hotel room somewhere (a sleep story), when you are somewhere noisy — for a racing mind, An attic room, when you are doing this for the first time — for a restless night or A lighthouse at the end of a long day (a sleep story), when you only have a few minutes — for the hours after a late shift.