Hello everyone, this is Ria with a quick note.
This is a full episode preview of a story featured on Little Stories for Sleep, an exclusive bedtime podcast just for my Little Stories.
Premium subscribers.
The episode I'm sharing with you today is part of a series I'm calling Wandering Sleep Stories.
These new stories are peaceful, calming, and perfect for that last track on a bedtime playlist.
On Little Stories for Sleep, Wandering Sleep Stories have no intro or outro.
It's just the story framed by soft music.
Now.
Grab your weighted blanket, snuggle up, and fall asleep to this sweet tale.
The ladybug did not have a name.
I will call her Vivian.
On a warm autumn day in the forest, Vivian spied a delicious-looking aphid on a broad verdant leaf attached to a stalwart plant that gleamed in the light.
As she'd done a thousand times before.
She took the opportunity, landing on the sturdy green surface and she had herself a snack.
That was all she meant to do, but there was something Vivian did not know about the plant.
And it was only after she finished her snack, when she attempted to fly away back the way she'd come, that she discovered she was no longer in the forest at all.
The plant, as it happened, was inside a cottage.
Vivian had flown through the frame of an open window, the screen of which was being subjected to a thorough dusting in another room.
The dusting did not take long, and the screen was soon replaced.
When Vivian sought to leave, she flew into the invisible wall of the screen and fell ungracefully to the narrow ledge of the window.
Vivian rarely fell.
She was not clumsy.
She flew expertly, without exception.
So she was jarred by the experience of falling.
She staggered to her feet, trembling faintly.
It was not lost on her that she had done the unthinkable.
A ladybug had to be circumspect.
To fly into an unseen barrier usually meant flying into a spider's web.
In any case, it seemed her exit was blocked.
Vivian remained on the windowsill for hours, maybe three hours. without so much as twitching a leg.
It would be difficult for me or you to do this, but not so for Vivian.
Ladybugs experience time differently than we do.
For all the hours that she remained fixed in place, She was aware of only two things the plant that had beckoned her to enter and the fine mesh that prevented her from leaving.
At the end of that stretch of time, the sun went down and the sky grew darker.
And she knew, fully then, somehow, that she would not be going back the way she'd come.
She retired for the evening, hiding in the dirt inside the plant's pot beneath the cover of a low-hanging leaf.
In the morning, she found another aphid.
Then, she went exploring.
Vivian had never been inside a cottage.
It was very different from her usual surroundings.
There were no trees. and no sky, and the ground was flat and lifeless.
She discovered openings to the outside through which she could feel the breeze and smell the forest.
But each time she attempted to leave through them, she butted up against invisible barriers.
It did not hurt to touch them, and they gave slightly.
She discovered she could sit on the screens of the windows and feel closer to the woods, but she could not go through.
There was a door as well, which she discovered midday.
It opened infrequently and unpredictably and closed swiftly.
She could hardly imagine making it through.
Vivian ended the second day the same as the first.
She came to a rest. on the sill beside the plant and remained there until the sky darkened.
After several days of this peculiar life in the cottage, the breeze became chilly, the windows were shut and the invisible walls separating Vivian from the outdoors were much harder, with absolutely no give at all.
She learned from one unfortunate attempt that when she flew straight at the glass, it sent her bouncing backwards, toppling to the ledge, landing on her back.
Slowly, she understood there would be no escape from this place.
At least, not now.
Days turned to weeks.
The light in the forest became softer, more muted.
Vivian perched on the windowpane for hours at a time, watching richly colored leaves sail to the ground on the wind.
On the odd occasions when the door of the cottage opened, cool air rushed in along with the lovely woodsy scent that reminded Vivian all that she missed.
Rain came, spattering the glass, giving her an intimate view of the water droplets.
She had not appreciated the beauty of rain until that moment.
The world darkened as winter descended.
The glass of the windows fogged up, especially in the sunlit mornings.
Vivian slept more nestled in her hidden spot of the potted plant, rising only in the late morning when harsh light streamed on the plant so much that she couldn't ignore it.
She'd fly to the sill and sit for a time, soaking in the sun's warmth.
Then, when the light softened and dimmed, she'd return to her hiding place and sleep deeply, dreaming of the forest.
One day, when the sun was mellow, she did not wake from her dreams until mid-afternoon.
She was startled to see the woodland white with snow.
For hours she sat on the cold glass and watched the flakes fall from the sky, blanket the ground and quiet the world.
The cottage hummed with small sounds of living, but everything seemed dampened in the winter.
Vivian did little besides sleep and watch the woods through the glass.
And wait.
One morning the light streamed in so insistent it seemed to tap her awake, as if to say get a move on.
Will you?
Vivian flew to the sill and, for the first time in ages, felt the breeze.
The window was open, but the screen was back.
Through it, she saw the forest brightening again.
Birds chattered, branches dipped under the weight of squirrels skittering through the canopy.
The snow was gone, save for defiant patches here and there in spots the sun did not reach.
Vivian observed life resuming slowly. and sensed that she, too, would resume living once again.
Soon.
Very soon.
The sun and moon swapped places as usual, but the sun lingered longer than before.
And on a sunny day with a warm breeze, Vivian watched in peaceful silence as the screen of the window was removed and taken away.
For so long she had stared out the window but had seen the forest as a picture, something she could not enter or touch now, with nothing between herself and the woods.
She looked more closely.
She spied a lovely fern she had never noticed before.
She imagined what might live in its many leaves.
And so, as she'd done a thousand times before, Vivian lifted up gently and flew toward her mark, passing from the small world of the cottage to the wide living world of the forest in spring.
This has been a special full episode preview of a wandering sleep story.
To hear more wandering sleep stories.
You can join Little Stories Premium by visiting littlestoriespremiumcom.
And thank you, as always, for listening in.
