I walked into the washroom, ripped off a sheet of toilet paper, tore it into two pieces, balled them up, and plugged my ears before crawling back into bed. An hour passed. Then another. I pulled a hoodie over my head and yanked the drawstrings as tight as they would go, until only my nose was sticking through its little puckered asshole. But the tone continued, even with my head buried under the pillow. I was becoming furious. Which was silly, really. The tone was insistent but not at all loud. In fact, it was even possible that if I woke the others they wouldn’t be able to hear it. Why was I blowing this out of proportion? For starters, there was no way in hell I was driving into Vegas in the morning on no sleep. And I thought that quite possibly I was beginning to go insane. I slid back out of bed and stood once more, stock-still, in the middle of the room. In another half-hour the sky would already be lightening.

And then it occurred to me. I walked to the front door and opened it. The sound intensified. I looked across the parking lot and saw the neon cross glowing on the front lawn. It must have been a full three or four storeys tall. It was so bright, the rest of the night took on a darker pitch of black around it. I began walking towards it, the damp grass wetting my feet, and as I neared it the tone grew more and more insistent until it filled my head and I was standing directly below the cross staring up at it, its harsh light searing my eyes. I imagined taking up a large stick, a branch, and smashing it against the bulb, shattering it with a deafening POP, and the glass raining down on me like a fine rain or dust. My eyes began burning and closed of their own accord. I looked down, everything white, even against my closed lids. I waited a long while before opening them, my head bowed as if praying. And when I finally did, I noticed something at the base of the cross. A little metal power box with a red switch. I bent down and flicked the switch to “Off.” And just like that, the light and noise disappeared. As easy as if I were turning off a bedside lamp. In the blessed silence the rest of the night gradually returned, its infinite gradients of darkness emerging from the blazing afterimage of the now-absent cross.