It was Q that started it all. He was drinking (again) with his buddies, R and S. Everybody just hanging out, having an after-work drink down at the Alpha Bar.
“Why the hell does that guy keep following me?” Q demanded. He was talking about U (again). R and S exchanged a glance. They knew why, but they weren’t saying.
“Oh, leave it alone, Q,” R tried to calm him down. “No, damnit,” Q slammed his glass down on the bar. “I’m tired of this! It’s like I’m under surveillance or something!” Q was talking too loud. The other letters were bound to hear.
K and L cast a glance down the bar at M who was sitting in his usual seat at the center of the bar. M just shrugged his massive shoulders and took a drink of beer. “I’m telling ya!” Q shouted, “U has been following me EveryDamnWhere I go and I’m tired of it!”
He was starting to get some attention now. S and T were sympathetic. “You go! Q!” they shouted, “H is doing the same damn thing to us!” That gave Q some courage. “Everywhere I go!” Q was really shouting, “There U is! Why can’t he just leave me alone?”
The vowels were sitting together at a table, like they always do, and Q’s voice was carrying over to them. They looked up as a group, and they didn’t look happy.
“What’s Q going on about now?” grumbled O. “Same old, same old,” said A. “ He thinks he can carry a word all by himself,” said I.
“He could always move to Iraq,” said U. “I sure as hell ain’t gonna follow him there!” The whole group broke up, laughing and carrying on as if they owned the whole word.
“Look at ‘em,” D complained, “They think they got it made.” The rest of the consonants were nodding now. Yeah, sure, Q had his problems, but he was still one of them and at times like these, you hang together. It’s a rule.
T was tired of it too. He stood up and flexed. Nobody paid a lot of attention. Except for K. She’s had a thing for T for a long time now but somehow just never can seem to get next to him.
So, of course the vowels just ignored him and kept on drinking and laughing. And of course that just pissed off a few more consonants. D stood up and tried to flex too, but let’s face it, what can you do with a gut like that?
P stood up as well. The vowels laughed louder. Sure, P was a babe, but could you really take a girl with a rack like that seriously?
This was a serious miscalculation on the part of the vowels. P took herself very seriously and wasn’t about to take shit from a bunch of vowels.
She walked past their table like she was on her way to the jukebox. The Alpha Bar always gets real quiet when P walks to the jukebox.
Usually, she would bend over, tapping her sweet, little serif to the beat of the music, and slooowly make her selection. Sweet. Then she would turn, smooth her skirt, and walk back to her spot next to Q.
But tonight was different. Tonight, P stopped right next to that table full of vowels. “Hey I!” she called, smacking her gum like she always does, “Ya know when you’re in upper case, you ain’t half bad looking,”
Pause … couple of more smacks, “But baby when you’re lower case, and you’re wearing that dot on your head? … You ain’t nuthin but a lower case vowel!”
Now, I has an ego like you wouldn’t believe, and the whole Alpha Bar knows it! He wasn’t going to just sit there and take it. It was so quiet now, you could hear a redneck drop a G.
J pulled his dreads back out of face and told everyone to, “Chill, mon.”
S implored the room; “Can’t we all just get along?”
This powderkeg was about to ignite when the door swung open and … as if in a parade … the Punctuation Marks walked in.
Immediately, ranks closed among the Letters. As one, they turned to face the intruders. “You boys lost?” asked A. B jumped in and called, “Hey Period, don’t you have a sentence to end?” (Everybody hates Period since he changed his name to Dot and ran off to join the Internet).
Question Mark said, “What?”
Exclamation Point said, “Now hold on there, pardner!”
Comma paused. And Slash pulled a blade.
Just that quick … the Alphabet War was on.
