Sounds are remembered, evoked, and dreamed of in this short text by Carine Doumit that oscillates between the bombastic sonic violence of the city of Beirut, Lebanon, the weary whispers of its protagonists, and the relentless sounds that occupy daily life. Taking inspiration from a forthcoming film, it reads like a feverish dream or poem in which the sounds of the city rise and fade.

April 4. Langebåt, Norway. I sit on a rock facing the spruce trees circling the narrow steep sides of the fjord. A bird’s conversation – a quarrel? – the waves seem to have fallen silent to make space for it. The dispute slowly dissolves into the air, toward the ocean, then grows closer. Two white geese stand in silence on the wooden deck. Are they lending an ear to the quarrel too? It is so rare to find yourself face to face with a single sound, isolated and clear, imposing its unequivocal presence. For the first time in a long time, the roaring echoes of Beirut have faded.

June 1. Beirut again. Deprived of lights at night, the city has become a «dark» city. Words sometimes just mean what they mean. This absolute night terrifies me. I could write a story about a woman, «She Who is Afraid of the Night». She would have recurring visions of others, aimlessly wandering in the gloomy streets, lost. Then they would find each other, meeting in the core of the city, at the exact midpoint of the night, when all things are possible. But how would I write this story if I do not dare to face the night and meet the others?

June 15. Tonight, a gigantic red moon will rise, announcing the summer heatwaves, they say. They call it the strawberry supermoon. A lingering sound seeps in my mind. At moments, it resembles a long and desperate cry. At others, it is a jubilant call for arms. The night – or is it the moon? – is calling on me to meet her. I can no longer hide.

June 16. It is now past midnight. It is the same night that started hours ago, yet it is different, altered by a thin reddish halo. A figure emerges in the alleyway, as if coming from another world. She does not walk, she glides. All dressed in black, she blends with other shadows, then suddenly reappears behind me. «Don’t be startled», she whispers. A sound recorder is rolled up like a snake or a protruding limb around her neck, her waist, and her arms. «I have gone hunting for sounds in the daytime», she tells me. «Beirut is shapeless, an unfathomable conglomerate. As for the sounds:

Electrical Saturation
A sonic violence:
Thresholds, very fast transients,
swerves, vigilant ear
In the heat, a vertigo

Hyperacoustic or deaf city or both at the same time
The sound of the impact of bullets on an engraved wall
And the brilliance of the silver blue.»

She speaks in chopped up sentences. I ask: «What is the silver blue?»
«The sea», she says, «the one we can’t hear, but is omnipresent.»
*«And what about the sounds at night?» I ask.
«The nights are different. Everything is suspended. Sounds are but echoes. Sometimes you can trace their origin, hoping it would lead you to unforeseen junctions of time and space.»

«Come», she says, and I follow her. The streets are empty. «Can you hear the roaring vibrations from under that bridge? Where are we exactly?», she asks, «and what are these voices that I hear?»

August 10. Under the bridge, the notorious Ring, a setup for a movie: lights, a camera and a slender curly-haired woman looking into the viewfinder. After a long moment, she calls out: «Floy, you can come out now.»

The graceful figure slowly emerges from the shadows, as if coming from another world. This night seems to be a continuation of the night when we met. There has been a long suspension in time, yet here we are again, in the presence of one another.

A man suddenly appears behind me. «Don’t be startled», he gently whispers. We observe Floy in silence, as she slides her protruded snaky ear over the rugged walls covered with reiterated calls for revolution. One of them reads: ANOTHER ENDING TO THIS WORLD IS POSSIBLE. The man whispers: «She is recording sounds from the city’s underbelly, voices from the past and the future intertwined.»

The shadow of a large creature looms over the bridge. The man gently calls out and a large German shepherd dog comes out of the shadows. All sounds seem to have been muted now, as the two companions leave the movie set and enter the dark night again, under a gigantic red moon.