The lights went low and I listened to the sound of her voice.

Slowly lower yourself down onto your side. Let your body descend, drifting like a falling leaf toward the ground until you find yourself at rest on your mat. When you’re ready, roll onto your back.

Let your legs lie flat. Feel the ground supporting you, cradling you as your body sinks into it. Let your breath slow. In then out. Feel the rhythm of your chest as it rises and falls like the slow waves of a tranquil sea. Feel your toes soften, your ankles loosen. Let your feet fall to the sides. Relax the muscles in your legs. Let your calves pool into liquid serenity. You use your legs too often. You don’t need them now. Feel your thighs atrophy. Feel your muscle fibers growing soft and quiet. Your nervous impulses slowing down. No chemical reactions. Your body conducts no energy as you now let your belly go soft.

Feel your navel sink down toward your spine. Feel your heartbeat slow and the blood in your veins slow with it. Your breath is ephemeral. Let it drift away like smoke from a dying ember. You don’t need air now. You don’t need blood. Let your fingers curl and feel the weight of your hands anchoring the rivers of dormant tissue that are your arms. Feel your tissue melt into the mat as your jaw melts with it and your shoulders go slack.

Let the tension go. Your job will wait. Your bills will wait. Your wife will mourn, but she will find peace in time as you feel your bones soften and your eyeballs sink into the back of your head. Let your blood rest along the plane of your back. Let your aspirations and desires intermingle with your microbiome as it now does the work for you. Let the industry of your gut flora become distant. Let it swallow your worry like the soothing hush of static.

Feel the knot in your stomach unravel. Let your fears decompose. Let the gasses inside of you fill your abdomen like a balloon. Your body is heavy, but your essence is lighter than air; buoyant and drifting on a warm breeze. Ignore the space around your body. Ignore the buzz of flies and the tickle of their legs. Ignore the wriggling beneath your skin. Let your body sink. Let it feed the earth as your skin cells have for decades. Let your existence slough. Feel yourself becoming one with the ground. All is still. All is nothing.

Now, it’s time to slowly rise. Roll to your side and bring your knees up to your chest.

Wake up Charlie. I think you fell asleep.

Charlie? Charlie, it’s time to get up.

Why are his lips—oh my god. QUICK! SOMEONE CALL—

I listened to the sound of her voice and the lights went out.

I could taste the lukewarm tinkling of fragrant darkness.

Namaste…