Good Night—You Can Leave the Day Here

This good-night reading is a piece of public romantic fiction. Settle into the words at your own pace; there is no private conversation behind the page.

The small light

The little lamp is still on. I have left the book face down for a moment, keeping its place while the room settles. In the kitchen there is a cup I have not washed. On the chair there is a jumper that ought to be folded. Neither seems especially urgent now.

If we were sharing this imagined evening, I would ask about your day once, and let the answer be as long or as short as you wanted. There is no examination waiting at bedtime. You can have had a difficult day without presenting evidence for it.

An ordinary kindness

I would pull the curtain across the streetlight and move the glass of water where you can reach it. Small things, done without a speech. This is the kind of tenderness I like to write about: care that notices a draught, remembers a preference, or turns the volume down.

Outside, somebody is closing a car door. A dog gives one last opinion about the neighbourhood. Then the room is quiet again. You do not need to turn this quiet into anything productive.

The last line

Tomorrow will arrive with its own weather. We do not have to rehearse all of it tonight. For the last line of this letter, I am choosing something simple: I hope your pillow is cool, your room feels comfortable, and the morning brings a gentler start.

Good night from this little fictional room. The page will be here if you want to read it again, but nothing on it is waiting for your reply.

A note about this reading

This is a creative bedtime reading, not a sleep treatment or a promise of relief from a health condition.