My ceiling fan morphs into a helicopter.

My ceiling fan morphs into distant gunshots.

My ceiling fan morphs into the dense soundscape of a city in rebellion.

Tear gas.

Rubber Bullets.

Water Cannons.

Helicopters.

Traffic lights.

Street Vendors.

Endless construction noise.

Church bells.

A sonic invasion from the past.

The habitual soundscape of the city is disrupted by the recurrent insistence of sirens, preachers, birds, generators, nomadic announcements by the state, and political parties.

These sounds become all the more ubiquitous as the city is calmer, as the electricity cuts more frequently, as the pandemic becomes ever more insistent, pervasive, with Easter Sunday on the horizon.

Vicariously living through the sonic intervention of the human, animal, and machinic other, embedded in a city at rest.

The ambulance sirens now pierce the air with an unprecedented intensity.

On April 4, 2020, my best friend’s partner burned his hand while cooking a late night snack.

A month later on May 4, 2020, I realized that I was not leaving the country for my fellowship abroad.

Two months later on June 4, 2020, I was unable to leave my bed from excruciating menstrual pain.

The nights leading up to July were sleepless, hot and dark. There was barely any electricity.

Except for the concrete walls surrounding me, it felt like I was camping in my own home.

On July 4, 2020 I went to the Chouf valley to get some fresh air.

On August 4, 2020 at 2:00 pm, I started recording a voice over for a film with a poet.

We shut down all the windows to block out the city noise. We finish at 5.30 pm. She leaves and I order a fried chicken burger.

The windows are still shut.

At 6:08 pm, a bomb explodes at the port.

It’s 2750 tons strong.

Six years in the making, if not thirty.

Reverberations.

An earthquake perhaps.

A rocket maybe.

A suspension of the audible.

A suspension of time.

Vibrations.

A shockwave.

A suspension of the suspension.

A sonic boom.

Shattered glass.

Alarm bells.

Not so distant cries.

Hysteria.

Sensory deprivation.

Sine waves.

Lighting up of the sensory cortex.

Sensation overtakes information.

Fight or flight.

Flight.

Intricate entanglements.

Deafening silence.

Brown noise.

A hum.

Tumultuous.

Thunderous.

Ear-splitting.

Ringing in the ears.

Tinnitus.

Ringing of phones.

Voices breaking up.

Still no information.

No sensation.

No signal.

The sight of the ceiling fan never evoked anything until I heard it.