In my whole life, I have only flown economy class.
I never had the chance to fly business or first class, that is until I became the lead singer of a punk rock band. Now I am flying first class to Paris. We are supposed to play at some place called the Elysee Montmartre.
I have no idea how to speak French, but I will have to say a few words to our audience when I open.
Something like:
Bon sang! Mon dieu... et Merde!
I think it means:
Good evening! Ladies and Gentlemen!
Turbulent
Oh my... This plane is having a lot of turbulance.
It's difficult to type my text.
I'm glad I'm in first class. I would hate to be in the back of the plane when something like this happens. It's like a roller coaster even in the front of the plane. It's kind of like the mosh pit that stirred up my last concert.
Storm
I started out three years ago making punk tunes to go along with our English class lessons. My friend was a substitute teacher that played the guitar really well. Another teacher was good at keyboards. I was good with making up songs with crazy lyrics. The kids loved it and we took the whole country by storm.
Speaking of "storm" I think there is lightning out the window of the plane. This looks pretty serious.
I remember the last class I had two years ago before I became a full time musician.
Classroom Flashback
It was a class of the most beautiful fourth graders I had ever taught. They were just ten years old. For a year I saw them grow up from little squabbling punks to kids that helped each other and got each other's backs. They trusted me, but I had to leave. I had a calling to bring punk music back into classrooms around the world.
Now was my chance to bring some wisdom to these kids before I leave them. We were supposed to study lesson twelve and talk about the four seasons. Instead I told the kids to put away their books. I asked the kids to think about one thing they remembered from this past year and talk about it.
One by one the kids told me about what happened in class. Some kids told me about a giant bee that entered the classroom in the summer. Another kid told me about how she spilled my mug cup all over the class and all her friends helped her to clean up without saying a word. One kid told me about the kimchi game we played.
No one told me anything about the English grammar points we learned or the textbook. Then I asked them if they could remember my name. A lot of the students couldn't remember exactly what my name was. So I told them that wasn't important and the English words and textbook weren't important. They asked me,
"Then what is important?"
I answered,
"That you were here with me and we learned how to get along. That's important. After many years you will not remember anything you learned, but you will remember the friends you made and the fun time and difficult times."
One kid then asked,
"Then why do you want to go?"
I told him:
"I don't want to go, but it is time. Sometimes in order to grow we have to say goodbye."
The kid said,
"I never want to say goodbye to anyone."
I said,
"Neither do I. Just say, 'Ishibacca.'"
So much for my encouraging words of wisdom.
I pretty much screwed up my last day of class as much as I screwed up getting on this airplane. Maybe I should have never left Korea to become a rock star.
It's not like my family was starving and I had to sell myself out to make a living. In fact being a rock star seems more of a prostitute than anything I ever did. I had to leave my family and kids to be on the road 90% of the year. I'm treated well, but I left behind everything that was important to me.
Oh, I feel sick like I'm going to vomit. I have never seen a plane do anything like this.
My last word:
Ishibacca!!
It's going down.
This is the one word that contains all of my feelings at this moment. The word Ishibacca is a combination of three swear words from three different languages.
아이시 (Ahshi) - This means "brother" in Jeju language.
시박 (Shi bac) - In Korean, it's just another way of saying 시발 (f*ck), although in this situation it may be Shiva the Rigvedic deity of storms and he is making a mess outside.
Bacca - Latin for berry, which can be good or bad but sounds cool.
Ishibacca!!
ISHIBACCA
My last text
This is the only text I could send out before the wifi went out on the plane. I sent it to my youngest son. He will know what it means and under the circumstances will deeply understand.
First class was nothing but hype. Being a rock star was not worth it. The 10 year old was right. I should have stayed in the classroom. This plane is taking a nose dive. I'm saving this file in case anyone recovers my hard drive.
ISHIBACCA!!
Seat belts in a jet really don't help much.
This story is fictional based on an what if scenario given @galenkp's weekend engagement prompts from week 172. The story is completely my own original material as well as the photos. All photos were taken by my cell phone. The jet engine belongs to Universal Studios, Hollywood. Have a great Ishibacca week.