A few years ago, I worked at a local eatery called The Midnyt Munch.

It was a small place, longer than wider, sandwiched between a vape store and a pawn shop in the center of a strip mall. As the name suggests, it stayed open from sundown to sunup; a perfect job for any minimum wage worker who could never be a morning person. However, I was the only non-managerial employee who didn’t work for $8.25 an hour.

Every night, Monday to Sunday, I parked my van outside the store and got paid to watch its neon sign.

~ ~ ~

I discovered this job from a flyer stapled to a telephone pole that usually had missing pet posters and stray chewed gum dots. The day that flyer appeared, however, the pole was spotless except for the ad’s bright, multicolored paper and bolded wording that guaranteed attention.

I hadn’t heard of The Midnyt Munch until then. Under the name’s psychedelic lettering and an elongated, wavy print of their slogan was the description of their new position:

LIGHT WATCHER NEEDED! 8PM – 5AM $40HR APPLY NOW!

A phone number followed. I was already dialing the number before I finished reading it. If I could score a well-paying job, then I could afford to move out of my dad’s basement.

The voice on the other end of the call introduced herself as the manager. I could tell from her tone that she was scrambling to find a pen and paper. “Do you have any experience as an electrician?”

“Some.” I didn’t lie. My dad, a former electrician, taught me a few tricks of the trade.

“Do you experience frequent trouble sleeping, or suffer from insomnia?”

I wondered if asking about neurological issues constituted as an interview violation. Nonetheless, I answered, “Sometimes. I promise that won’t be a problem—”

“Not a problem at all. It’s a good thing here,” she hurried to explain. “One more question: Do you use any supplements to help keep you awake for long hours? I.e., energy drinks, smelling salts, coffee?”

“Energy drinks. Should I—”

“The Midnyt Munch will provide plenty of those each night as needed.”

I stared at the flyer, rereading the hiring description. The paper had a shimmering quality to it, like it had been dipped in stardust after being printed out.

“So, I’m hired?” I asked.

“Yep,” she said. “We’ll need you to start tonight.”

~ ~ ~

The neon sign above the front entrance outglowed the rest of the strip mall’s signage. It shone a luminous, orangey-yellow, the shade of a harvest moon. The ‘i’ in ‘Midnyt’ had a star substituting the dot. The manager met me in the parking lot at exactly 8 p.m., where she handed me a Munch-brand can packed with liquid caffeine. Her golden name tag read Hannah.

“What is this job, exactly?” I asked. “A light watcher. Like, I watch that sign?”

Hannah glanced over her shoulder to where I gestured, her low ponytail flipping to the other side. “Exactly. If any lights in ‘Midnyt’ start flickering, call me immediately. I’ll get you a ladder. Same phone number you used earlier.”

I cracked open the energy drink—a fruit medley that rivaled fruit punch—and took a sip, then asked, “Just to clarify, you want me to watch for flickering lights all night, and if something’s amiss then I go up there to fix it? Forty an hour?”

“Forty an hour,” she said. “And if any lights go out…” She paused. The night air’s chill left a grey, wispy trail as her breath left her nostrils. “Don’t wait for a ladder to come. Get up there however you can and fix it A.S.A.P. Okay?”

“Okay. Yeah. I’ll just—I’ll just sit in my car, then, and…” I trailed off as Hannah walked away.

I watched her from my car for a few minutes, observing her nightly routine inside the store. Normal employee things: restocking, taking inventory, cleaning tables, checking the cash register, etc. Around 9 p.m., the first customers of the night arrived, followed shortly after by a few more cars’ worth of hungry people. Mostly college-age; drunk or high with no designated driver in sight. The parking lot filled and emptied on loop for most of my shift, like clockwork. During it all, ‘Midnyt’ never flickered or began fading.

Hannah lit up the front door’s ‘CLOSED’ sign at 5:20 a.m., at which time I poured the last few drops of my energy drink onto my tongue and trashed the can in the backseat.

“Here,” she said, meeting me at my van. She held out a white envelope with a star-shaped sticker that held the flap down.

I opened it to reveal three $100 bills, one $50 bill, and one $10 bill. A few days’ worth of this money, and I could pay rent on a small apartment away from my dad.

“Thanks,” I said, putting the envelope in my glovebox.

“See you later.”

“Right. See you.”

Hannah waited for me to start driving away before walking to her own vehicle. Even as I turned out of the parking lot, I felt her watching me leave.

~ ~ ~

The next few weeks continued in that same fashion. An accident-free, easy time of monitoring the glowing sign, pounding energy drinks, and listening to my favorite podcast. When my shift ended, Hannah gave me the envelope of cash, and I left without a goodbye.

At 2 a.m. on my tenth week, a different employee met me outside. She knocked on my driver’s side window and called through the glass, “Mind if I take my smoke break with you?”

She stood taller than Hannah and had shaved her hair close to her scalp. She wiggled a vape pen between her index and middle fingers, which were missing the long, stick-on nails that her other fingers sported. When she smiled, her lip ring caught the moonlight.

“Sure,” I said, unlocking the passenger door.

She slid inside and shut the door. I paused the podcast on my phone as she cranked the handle that rolled her window down, blowing a trail of tropical smoke into the air.

“I’m Mark,” I said.

“Paisley. Thanks for letting me chill here for a bit.”

The parking lot was emptying again, having finished another of its waxing and waning customer cycles. In the near silence, I could almost hear the sign’s electric buzz.

I leaned back further into my seat. “No problem. How long have you worked at The Midnyt Munch?”

“Um, I dunno. Probs, like, two years? Time goes by way fast.” She blew another vape cloud out the window.

“Do you like working here?”

“For sure. I get a lot of employee-discounted snacks. Plus…” She tapped one nail against her vape pen. “…this place beats working clothes retail.”

We sat in silence for another few minutes, during which time I grew accustomed to the tropical smell. Out of curiosity, I asked, “Hey, Paisley, have you ever actually seen that sign flicker or anything?”

She shrugged. “No clue if it has or not. I’m an indoor employee. You’re the outdoor employee.”

“Sure, but what about the previous person who worked my job? Like, the former light watcher?”

“Oh, well, yeah,” she said, taking another hit of her vape. “Obviously you aren’t the first. This place has had one o’ those since they opened. It’s super important.” She snorted a laugh, adding, “At least Hannah thinks so, anyway.”

Paisley capped her vape pen and tucked it in her breast pocket below her nametag. She pointed to the sign.

“See that little star above the ‘i’ there?” she said. “Hannah’s, like, really particular about it. The owner of this place says that if the star goes out, the world ends.”

I choked, spluttering Munch-brand caffeinated fruit seltzer down my chin and onto my shirt. “Wait, what?”

“Mm hm. No clue what it means, though.”

I set the energy drink can in my cupholder and wiped my fingers on my pantlegs, too invested in this conversation to consider searching for napkins to dry myself off.

“Let me get this right: If that star above that ‘i’ goes out,” I said, “then the world ends? The whole world? How does a snack shop’s neon sign determine the fate of the world like that?”

“I dunno. I think it’s more… metaphorical, if I’m using that word right. Maybe it’s not the whole world. Maybe it’s just one person’s.” Paisley rolled up the window and hopped out of my car. “I think a lot of people see their world as the entire thing. One little star goes out, and there it all goes, y’know? But hey, you’re getting $40 an hour over a superstition.”

I watched her walk back inside The Midnyt Munch. My gaze drifted back to the sign, to the little star that dotted the ‘i’, and I wondered if such a thing could be true. If so, all I needed to do to keep earning $360 a night was prevent the world from ending.

~ ~ ~

Three more days passed before I saw the sign flicker.

The corner of the ‘M’ in ‘Midnyt’ went on and off, like someone’s head bending forward as they dozed and popped back awake. I called Hannah and, without asking for details, she brought out a stepladder that reached comfortably up to the sign. An incoming customer beckoned her back inside, so I was left alone with the ladder. I brought my toolkit up with me, fixed the issue, and admired my handiwork.

The dotting star was right there. Directly beside the first ‘M’. I didn’t even need to scoot the ladder over to reach it.

I stared at the star for a long time until I couldn’t handle the brightness anymore. When I squeezed my eyes shut, I still saw it burning beneath my eyelids. I thought I spotted something shooting around inside it.

~ ~ ~

I was let go the following month.

“Why?” I asked Hannah as she handed me my final payment envelope. “Has something happened to the store? Or the owner? I promise nothing’s wrong with the sign.”

She shook her head. “Moving locations, that’s all. The owner thinks this place will have better business in a busier part of town.”

“I can drive wherever you need me to,” I insisted. “It won’t be a bother, really. Please, let me keep working for you.”

Hannah gave me a confused look. She glanced from me to the sign and back again. Then, her confusion morphed into realization, followed by apathy. “You’re worried about the star, right? Don’t be. It’s not our concern anymore. It’s the next store’s worry.”

“What’s the next store? Do you know?”

Hannah unpinned her nametag and slid it into her back pocket, saying, “A tech store, if I recall. Mindfulware or something like that.”

“So, they’ll keep the ‘i’ as it is?”

“They’ll have to,” she said. “The Midnyt Munch wasn’t the first place to have the starry ‘i’. It’s just that no one has been able to remove it from the storefront since it was first put there, like, fifty years ago.”

I never saw Hannah and Paisley again.

~ ~ ~

Yesterday, driving past that old strip mall, I saw the Mindfulware sign.

Above its ‘i’, the star flickered.