Ebb and Flow

It's merely 2:20 am. My husband has been asleep for hours, now. I keep reading. All is quiet beyond the hum of the fan, steadily oscillating. There's an ebb and flow, though. A noise that is penetrating me. It is steady and low. It sounds like the horrid noise made when someone of great annoyance runs a damn finger over a crystal glass's rim. It is low and far, but I can't drown it out, even with a low television show droning on in the background. I can't make it stop. I don't know what it is. It increasingly haunts my ears. 

Sometimes snoring has a similarly powerful affect. Something so rhythmic but so annoying. Something that just won't quiet. 

I hope that I haven't fooled myself. I no longer hear it. I pray it doesn't come back.