Quench your Thirst by watching Plums.

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In the past I have written stories based on old Welsh stories. This one is based on an old Chinese story. Thanks to Mou, one of my students, for telling me the original. 

It started with disgruntled sighs, then passive aggressive tutting, but now the hot sweaty faces of the passengers were contorted with real anger and Daryl for one didn't blame them. It had been three hours since they’d boarded the plane and they were still sitting on the tarmac. On any normal day they would have arrived at their destination, disembarked, and would have picked up their luggage by now, but this was not a normal day. Everything had looked fine, they’d boarded on time, taxied out to the runway, no problem were reported, but, then they were instructed to get back to the apron as quickly as possible as a plane was coming in with landing gear issues.

Some people don’t realise how lucky they are; tired, hungry and thirsty on a plane is a hardship, but it’s nothing to crash landing. It had happened to Dylan twice and he still woke up dreaming about it. There’s nothing worse than thinking you are going to die as you come belly flopping down to earth, and then being led away from a burning plane via emergency chutes. But still the angry man with the loud voice was demanding something be done and was whipping up a storm inside the cabin. No amount of little cups of water or offering to charge economy class phones in the business class sockets could placate the angry hordes. To make matters worse, one of the toilets had stopped working and the other was barely fit for purpose, both were emitting smells that were not conducive to confined spaces. But having said all that at least laptops and iPads were not being burnt to a crisp like  other people’s were on the plane at the far end of the runway.

“I demand to be let off this plane.” The angry man. He stood up and tried to push his way past Daryl's colleague who was struggling to control him and her temper.
Daryl lifted the PA speaker and summoned his kindest cabin crew voice.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you for your continued patience.”
The gentleman who was trying to battle his way to the front of the plane stopped in this tracks.
“We've just heard from air traffic control that we should be leaving in about 30 minutes.”

Lara, Daryl’s colleague, stared at him, they’d heard nothing of the sort. The last message they’d had was that the toilets would be cleaned and they’d get some orange juice and coffee on board for the passengers, but nothing about leaving. “What are you doing,” she mouthed at him.  

Daryl covered the mouthpiece. “Trust me,” he whispered.

“Once again we are sorry for this delay, it was caused by an aircraft in distress. But hopefully, we will have a firm take off time soon.”

“Finally,” the angry man turned around and headed back to his seat.

“What the fuck are we going to do now?” Lara said to Daryl when he put the intercom down. “There’ll be a fucking riot when we are still sitting here in thirty minutes.”

“Trust me,” he repeated. Lara turned away, Daryl let her be. He could see that she was getting just as fraught as the passengers.

Thirty minutes later the cabin crew were busy serving fresh coffee to the passengers. The pilot had turned the air conditioners on and the ground staff had managed to fix the toilets. No one could claim the passengers were happy, but the anger had gone from their faces.

“Any news on take-off time?” the angry man asked Daryl.

“It’s going to be at least another thirty minutes, I’m afraid.” Daryl said.

“Oh well, can’t be helped I suppose.” the angry man smiled.

Lara looked at Daryl.

“How on earth did you do that?” she asked.

Daryl smiled. “Old Chinese proverb,” he said. “you can quench your thirst by watching plums.”

Daryl walked away, he’d let her work it out for herself.