Airships

I had a dream that airships were making a comeback (based on the article in the New York Times on that topic).

See, oil was running out, so the governments couldn’t afford to gas up their fighter jets anymore, so they were going to have airships instead.

But the first of the airships were civilian. Me and my middle school class were going on an early voyage of one of them. We even put on a play about airships, to celebrate the event.

So we were riding on it. And everybody was snapping pictures and having a good ol’ time. But I was looking for a way to destroy it. I slipped away, so people weren’t keeping track of me. Then I found a few valves inside, and popped them off. I opened the windows and threw stuff at some more valves that I could see, and popped them off. Everybody came to inspect it, so they weren’t paying attention to the controls, so I ripped the cords out of a couple of computers.

We were losing pressure and sinking. Slowly enough that we wouldn’t die, but surely enough that we couldn’t keep flying.

Beckah found out that it was me, later, and asked me what was up. She was especially mad because she was the star of the airship play, so this was embarassing for her.

I explained that everybody was going to be unable to use their fighter jets. If we could transition so smoothly to airships, and if the USA led the world in airships, then nothing would change. I wanted to allow other countries to challenge the US’s superpower status. Running out of gas could be the great leveller. But not if the US held onto its stranglehold. I thought that if I could destroy this airship, it would be like the Hindenberg, in that it would discredit airships again, and be an embarassment for the US and for its airship program. I thought that we were at a crucial point, and something small like this could turn the tide.

Beckah was not impressed.