Soundwaves and Ceasefires

By Troy Lowndes

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Hypersonic Missiles — It’s a track by Sam Fender.

I first ‘heard it’ in mid-2023—about three months into my neurodivergent awakening—

Sam had released it in 2019.

But for me, it arrived a few years later, like a deluge of insight — one that hit on a sleepy Sunday morning.

Thinking back now, I’m strangely reminded of that McCain’s Super Juicy Corn commercial from the ’90s—the one set in outback Australia.

An old farm house, a drought-stricken scene. A scruffy young guy in a flanno—or maybe a singlet—hears what sounds like small stones landing on the old tin roof.

He steps outside, puzzled. Then he yells:

“Marj! The rains are here!”

That was me in 2023.

Only instead of rain, it was song lyrics.

Soundwaves.

A downpour of meaning I’d somehow never heard until then.

I rewound track after track I thought I knew, caught in a constant flux.

Like the guy in the outback, I started yelling too.

Telling anyone who’d listen—even those who wouldn’t—about the messages I was just starting to notice.

Clear. Direct. Hidden in plain sight.

Fast forward to now: July 4th, 2025.

Of all the days to be thinking about this.

I keep circling back to that one line:

“It’s a fine time for hypersonic missiles.”

Sam belts it out with a strange kind of joyful despair.

Mentions kids in Gaza. Bombs being dropped. Says he’s “just kinda out of it.”

And back then?

So was I.

Dutch kids, huff balloons in the parking lot.

The golden arches illuminate the business park.

I was no different a few years back—completely oblivious.

Not just to Gaza, but to all the messages whispering beneath the music I loved.

Buried under melody. Rhythm. Routine.

As for Gaza?

There was tension, sure. But that tension had lasted generations.

The major attack hadn’t happened yet.

That came in October—around my 49th birthday.

On a Jewish holiday. When Israel’s guard was down.

And when the invaders came, they chanted: Death to all Jews.

Foot soldiers. Motorbikes. Homemade gyrocopters—ridiculous-looking machines that carried horror.

They didn’t care who the targets were.

Men. Women. Children. The elderly.

Young people dancing at a music festival.

Joy turned into horror.

Then came the retribution.

Israel. The IDF.

A counterflood—missiles, mortars, fury.

The sky didn’t rain corn kernels in this desert.

It rained hell.

Within days, Gaza was rubble.

Palestine—once a jewel—now dust.

Millions displaced. Everything scorched.

Then last month, the world saw something new:

Verified images of hypersonic missiles in action.

At first, it looked like fireworks. Flares.

But it didn’t stay that way.

Israel and Iran traded blows.

What began as posturing became escalation.

Iran flooded the sky—drones mostly, like those used by Russia against the Ukraine.

But this time, they slipped in faster, heavier payloads.

Some broke through.

Israel’s Iron Dome—long its pride—caught most.

Eighty, ninety percent, they say.

But the rest hit. Hard.

And now? July 4th.

Day two of the ceasefire.

Trump is back, dictating terms.

The UN is scrambling. Allies are in flux.

And I keep thinking: The Iron Dome.

It’s the perfect metaphor.

Yesterday, in session with my psychiatrist, I told him:

“When you and I first met, I think I’d already built my own Iron Dome.”

Mine took 48 years.

Built slowly. Crude. Patched together with trauma, shame, and survival.

Like Israel’s, it held.

But not without cracks.

For two years, it stayed intact.

Then the rain came.

The music.

The lyrics.

The truth I couldn’t un-hear.

And now—here I am.

On the edge of a ceasefire.

Learning to live without full defence.

Letting in just enough to feel—but not break.

Because sometimes, sound carries prophecy.

And sometimes, what rains down isn’t just bombs.

It’s awareness.

And when it hits—

You’ve got no choice but to open the window and yell:

The rains are here.