On Fiery Dreams & Maydays

 

Oddly enough, I had a vivid dream just before waking on the morning of the SOTU address. It involved a huge airliner flying overhead, alarmingly low to the ground, with someone in the cockpit shouting "Mayday, Mayday" loud enough for me to hear.  I was standing in a field below watching it pass and thinking it was going to crash, when the plane suddenly veered left and piled nose down straight into the ground creating a huge ball of fire and dense black smoke.  The dream was so strong and intense, and the Mayday so clear, I didn't know what to make of it, but told MrM about it, in case it had come as a prediction or warning of something adverse about to happen in our lives or elsewhere.  

Then, after hearing how "fiery" and darkly lie-filled the SOTU delivery turned out to be, I wondered if what took place there be one way to look at or interpret whatever fears, imaginations, or premonitions might have fueled that dream?  Those thoughts were followed by seeing this Ramirez cartoon come up today, depicting a similar but different vision of overall wreckage and destruction.  

Even though it would be impossible in real life to hear, over the roar of jet engines, a voice shouting Mayday from on high, what came through loud and clear in the dream was the internationally recognized signal of distress.  Who or what is in need of help is up for interpretation.  

"Owing to the difficulty of distinguishing the letter "S" by telephone, the international distress signal "S.O.S." will give place to the words "May-day", the phonetic equivalent of "M'aidez", the French for "Help me."
—"New Air Distress Signal," The Times [London], 2 Feb. 1923"