Emmie Christie-- My Squealing Fan is Someone Else's Terrible Week
Something mechanical in the kitchen ceiling will not stop squealing. I asked a general inspector when I first bought the house a year ago, "Why does it squeak like that?"
He peered upwards. "Something loose in the top of the fan? You'd have to get to it from the roof, probably." That sounded expensive, so:
I didn't.
So:
It squeaks.
It's the loudest on windy days. In the spring, when the temperatures swing in Nebraska from 34 to 80 in a day, the wind gusts roar up 50 mph. On those days, the fan squeals like a newborn tyrannosaurus rex.
I work from home as a receptionist for an orthodontist, and in between scheduling appointments for braces , I grit my teeth and glare at the kitchen ceiling from the living room. "Stop!"
It does. And then? It resumes.
The lady on the phone gasps. Whoops. I forgot to mute myself. "Excuse you!" she says.
"No, no—" I say.
"No?"
"I mean, it was this sound in my house. Not you."
A pause.
"I would like to speak to your manager!"
"There is no manager. There is just me. What time would you like to schedule your braces removal?" I glance at the agenda calendar on the wall, where I also write in all the appointments by hand. It's easier for me to keep track of everything if I do it by hand.
After work, I clamber onto a step stool and peer up into the dark recess where the bottom of the fan sits, unmoving. The top only whines a little, as the wind has calmed down.
"Can you understand me?"
It does not pause. I get embarrassed. I'm talking to something in my ceiling. I climb back down, prepare dinner, and stuff some earplugs in.
The wind picks up sometime around 3am, and the fan screams back at it. I throw my pillow over my head, but still the sound cuts through.
"Hey!" I shout. The wailing stops. "Listen here." I am half awake, but the part that is awake is full of rage. "If you don't shut up, I'mma climb up there and shove a broom up your ass!"
It lets out a little peep.
"That's it!" I grab the stepstool, the broom from the side closet, and reach upwards with the broom handle, through the still fan blades, and smack whatever is up there.
An indignant yelp sounds. And then an absence of sound, like a blip in space, like a deadening in my ear, as if I'd put my earplugs back in.
"What—what was that?" I pull the broom back, or try to, but something's latched onto it. I yank on it. "Give me back my—"
A grinding sound fills the space. The broom handle comes back down, and markings on it catch my eye. "Week 290."
"What?"
The squealing has stopped.
Relieved beyond curiosity, I put my earplugs back in and sleep.
The next day, I peer upwards at the ceiling, half-convinced I'd dreamt it all. But the words "Week 290" still mark my broom handle.
I rub my eyes and bumble around, making coffee. I start work. Slowly, the wind gusts stronger and stronger throughout the day, as does the answering fan. Jerry, the orthodontist, checks in at 2pm, peering at me through the screen and changing his gloves. "Okay, so that kid is gonna need a palatal expander. Their upper jaw is like a New York traffic jam. Has their insurance come through yet?"
"Not yet. The mom mentioned they might need a few weeks to get the money together. You're going on vacation then, though."
"And then we start in on the holidays." He purses his lips. "What is that sound?"
"The fan in my kitchen. Or a demon."
I had almost tuned it out until he'd mentioned it. Now, it seems much, much louder, and the wind outside seems to be trying to outscream it.
"Sounds like it's damaging your ceiling. Also, maybe hampering your ability to do your work?"
I sigh. "Sorry."
On the inside, though, I flip him off. I've worked for Jerry for five years, and the only time he's ever asked me about my well-being was when that guy t-boned my car last year. And the next thing he'd asked was when I could resume work.
I don't have the energy to try and schedule an inspection for the fan. I just want to sleep, and I dread trying to. I check the weather app. "Wind Advisory till 9am tomorrow."
I jam earplugs in at 6:00, put headphones over them, and lay down on the bed. Still, the squealing cuts through. I turn on some loud music. That drowns it out, but somewhere around 10pm, after still not sleeping, something breaks inside me.
I blunder out to the kitchen and flick the lights on. They flicker.
"I can't do this anymore!"
The fan stops for a moment. While the ringing in my ears has a small break, I grab the broom handle and bang at the fan, over and over and over, imagining it is Jerry, or every annoying client that's ever 'asked to see my supervisor.' "How. Do. You. Like. It?"
I am about to continue when I realize there are more markings on the broom handle. "Week 309. Week 310. Week 311." They go all the way to 320, all the way down the handle.
"What . . . what is this?"
The wind moans outside, and something in my calendar on the wall rearranges itself. The underlined and bolded 'Jerry's vacation' splits apart, the text circling into eyes. The appointments before it morphs into a nose, and a mouth, and the dates on the agenda itself seem to magnetize and link themselves into strands of hair. It's a face.
A face that tries to speak out of time.
While, the mechanical squealing seems to have no face, but has a time element.
My brain goes into overdrive. In the fifth dimension, space and time could manifest as opposites.
I write on the calendar, careful not to write on the face itself, "Have you had a tough time these past few weeks?"
The face in the calendar nods.
I swallow. "So have I," I write. "I think, here, your time has a sound. It screams in my house."
The face makes an 'o'.
"It's alright. It helps to know, you know?"
Another nod.
"I bet, if I'm having a bad time, something in your house makes sound, too?"
Vigorous nodding, almost ripping the pages on the calendar.
"I hope things get better. For both of us."
The next day, the fan remains quiet, except for a few squeals. From then on, whenever it shrieks randomly in the wind, I look over at my wall, and write on my agenda for a little bit. I ask what they've been going through, though I usually don't understand.
The fan hasn't wailed continually in the past year, and I've quit my job as Jerry's receptionist. I think that my time has been a little quieter on their side of space, too.