Sleep Stories

By Tony Walker

Sleep Stories for Grown Ups: a city in the clouds; pirate treasure under a coral reef; a misty wood; fireworks showering the sky.

 

This short book contains twenty-three whimsical sketches of wonderful places, designed to be read out loud to the person you want to fall asleep.

 

 Originally written for the Sleep Stories podcast, these little gems are available for you to read at bedtime for yourself, or for your loved ones.

• Language: English
• Publisher: White Rabbit Press
• Release date: Apr 8, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393092735

Book preview

1

The House Of Sleep

There’s a house at the end of the street. It stands back from the road, and trees grow near it. It’s a big house, and it’s an old house, and it’s a house you can feel safe in. 

This house has four storeys and forty rooms, and there’s a garden at the front and one at the back too, and the garden at the front has two lawns and six apple trees, and in the spring, these trees are heavy with white blossom.

To the left of the apple trees are six cherry trees, and in the spring, these trees are heavy with pink blossom, and sometime in May, if there’s a breeze, the petals blow like confetti and carpet the street in pink and white and white and pink and the scent is delicious and delightful and subtle.

And in the spring, the grass smells fresh and looks emerald green, and when it’s been cut, the smell of fresh-cut green grass perfumes the lazy afternoons and the warm evenings.

In the summer, the garden at the back of this house has rose bushes in flower, and their sweet scent mixes with honeysuckle and jasmine and eglantine and oxlip and the hedges are twined with may blossom and blackthorn and the white flowers of the briar rose. 

But in the winter, the garden sleeps.

This house has a gate. And this gate is up two steps of smooth sandstone from the street. This gate is painted black. It’s an iron gate, a well-oiled gate, and a gate that opens easily without a squeak. The gravel crunches underfoot as you walk up from the sandstone steps onto the path of pink gravel. 

We have talked of Spring and Summer, but now it is winter, and a blackbird watches from the bare branches of the apple tree, bead-bright eyes blinking.

It has recently rained in the garden and water puddles onto the stone path, but for now, the shower holds off, and the clouds keep the rain, high up, grey like wet cotton wool, waiting, rushing, blowing by. 

The big wooden door is painted red. It has a brass letterbox and a brass door-handle, and a brass knocker in the shape of a hand. 

 A Victoria Creeper climbs the wall covering half the ancient render, and while the door was postbox red, or London bus red or Post-Office van red or red as Marilyn Monroe’s lipstick, this long, leafy Victoria Creeper vine is as red as old wine.

In Autumn, it was crimson, vermillion, carmine, red as paint, but now in winter, colour blanching as the year dies away, it’s burgundy and claret fading out like teacher’s ink.

Yes, it’s winter now. Winter and cold outside. Best go in.

 The door pushes open easily, and you enter. The hallway is floored in red and black tiles that look like they’ve been there since Queen Victoria. They probably have.

The hallway is cosy and warm, and you hang your coat and hat and scarf on the hatstand to the left. This stand is fashioned from dark wood, and is already hanging with other people’s coats and hats, visitors from other times and other places, all arriving in their dreams.

Standing at the bottom of the coat stand are umbrellas in a rectangular wood receptacle designed directly for them to fit nice and snug. You have no umbrella.

At the door behind, hang curtains of red and gold brocade, and you swish them across to keep out the draft. As you step in, ever so quietly, there is a light on in the room to the right, a gentle electric light as if from a Tiffany lamp or an old crystal chandelier.

As you take another step, a melody fills the air, piano music from a gramophone revolving, playing, turning, hissing. The chords climb like chocolate and ice-cream and dreams. The notes ring like butterflies and swallows and bees.

There is a mirror on the wall, old and heavy in a gilt frame. You sneak a peek. Not bad, if you do say so yourself. A bit tired perhaps, but that’s why you’re here.

Above, a fitting of three lights gives illumination to the hall. It is in the shape of lily flowers. The bulbs glow soft translucent yellow, made maybe around 1927. Perhaps 1928. Ahead, a staircase sweeps up, made of oak, and a stair rug from Persia runs right up the steps, held in place by brass runners. 

The rug is clean, newly hoovered, and the brass runners are polished bright.

A friend sits in the room by a fire, and you call to her that you’re going to bed because you’re tired. She doesn’t reply because she, like everyone else in this house is asleep.

And so you step up the stairs. You’re weary, and it’s time for bed. It’s early, but even so you deserve the chance to relax; you deserve the opportunity to sleep. Sleep sounds good. It’s time to sleep. Yes, sleep. That’s a lovely idea. Nice to think about that.

You mount the stairs one by one and so arrive at the first landing with its rich wallpaper and rows of paintings that are scenes of seascapes and landscapes and deer and dogs. Your bedroom is not on this floor, but you hear the snores and sighs of those already sleeping.

This is a house of dreams.

Getting wearier and tireder and sleepier, you mount the stairs to the second floor. Here is where you sleep. This is your very own room in the house of dreams.

And here is the door to your room, polished with beeswax with brings out the patina and shapes in the wood and you reach out with your gleaming key, taking the handle, turning the key smoothly and pushing the polished door open, and here in this lovely room are all your familiar things. 

The bed has a duvet of deep blue with stars and comets, meteors and planets embroidered in gold and silver. Your pillows are deep and downy. Your bed is high, and comfort calls out to you: time to sleep.

Undressing and folding your clothes in a neat pile, you pull on your pyjamas made of Chinese silk—a little luxury bought for