“Peeom.” That’s what it sounded like to me. ”Peeom. Peeom. Peeom. Peeom. Peeom. Peeom.” And on. And on. And— you get the picture. “Peeom.” Seemingly all through the night. Felt like all through the night. It had a slightly high pitched, nasally, video game like quality with the sustained constancy of the latter. A constancy that has me thinking of the painting, The Scream. Because it literally made me want to. Because it was nighttime and I was trying to sleep. I got up a few times and opened the door and the sound stopped. But then I’d get back in bed— sometimes even before I made it in— and then I’d hear, “Peeom. Peeom. Peeom.” At one point, I opened the door fully and found the sound maker a few feet away, lying in the landlord’s garden. A cat. Still lying there as I stood in the doorway, not appearing to be in distress, said cat just looked at me. I think I said something along the lines of, “Really? Could you stop?!” before going back inside. Imagine my surprise at the silence that followed! It was the type of moment one might see on a television show where the neighbor has been woken up in the middle of the night by noises — perhaps furniture being moved around upstairs. Looks at the clock—it’s almost 2 am?!! Gets up, grabs the long handle of a broom and raps hard against the ceiling in protest. In the television show, his efforts lead to victory. Silence and order is returned. He puts the broom away, gets into bed, turns off the lamp, snuggles deeper under the covers. And then, “Peeom. Peeom. Peeom.” And that’s how it stayed until sometime around 6am.