(In which I remembered something original.)
***
During our training in our previous job, we were asked to write a story either about the five fingers or the alphabet. I chose to write about the alphabet. and my topic was how the vowels and consonants came to be.
The War of the Letters
In the Alphabet Kingdom, the letters live harmoniously though they lack a leader. They help each other in making words. They love making words! And they live a happy life everyday.
But one day, a group of letters noticed something starnge about their kingdom.
"I heard Lion called for a meeting last night," said P.
"Why he's the King of the jungle! It's his way of telling his subjects if there would be any announcements in their kingdom," replied G.
"Yes, I know. He's the leader. What I was trying to say is, we don't have any leader in our kingdom, do we?" said P.
"Yeah, P's right." sounded R.
"So you mean we also should have our leader? But we're happy this way, aren't we?" asked M.
"I understand why P's wondering. It's kinda unusual for a kingdom to be without a leader. Someone should be directing us, right? said G.
The other letters thought for a while. Then the next day, the letters huddled for a meeting.
"So you guys think we should have a leader?" asked A
"Yes!" the letters echoed.
"But who will be the leader?" asked X.
Everyone fell silent. Then E spoke, "I think A would be a good leader."
L thought E wanted A to be the leader because they're friends. So he said "Z could also make a good leader!"
Now they have two candidates. So the next thing they should do is to elect their leader. It was a very historical eventin the Alphabet Kingdom - the first election.
There are 26 of them:
M, N, B, V, C, X, Z, L, K, J, H, G, F, D, S, A, P, O, I, U, Y, T, R, E, W and Q.
And the two candidates received 3 votes. It's a tie!
"Then who will be the leader now?" asked K.
The letters started arguing. Some believe Z sounds very challenging while some think A is more useful in making words. The argument went on and on until they have decided to conduct a second election between A and Z. Both parties tried their best to win the support of the other letters.
The second election day came and the votes were counted. E, I, O and U voted for A while the rest voted for Z. A and his supporters could not believe what happened and started questioning those who voted for Z. It came to a point when they accused them of treachery. It angered Z and his supporters.
"The majority of the letters has chosen me as the leader of this kingdom. And it is my duty to maintain peace and order. I believe it would be better to send A and his supporters out of the kingdom before they cause more trouble."
So A, E, I, O and U were banished. They lived outside the kingdom and were called vowels from then on. The other lettes were then called consonants.
After months of living outside the kingdom, the vowels realized that they can't do their task of making words without the consonants.
"How can we live like this? We've been away from the other letters from quite a while now yet we were only able to make a pronoun and an article!" exclaimed U.
Meanwhile, in Z's kingdom, the consonants realized the same thing.
"Our job is to create words. But it's apparent that we need the vowels. We were only able to come up with three-letter words like fry, try, sly, spy, fly, cry, sty and the like. And the longest one we've made is rhythm." said W.
Z pondered long and after two days, the vowels were back in the Alphabet Kingdom.
"We were living happily though we don't have a leader. In our kingdom, everyone is important and we need each other to fulfill our tasks. I think it's better if we will live our lives the way we used to," said A.
Everyone agreed and the letters were back to being leaderless but they are happy and they undersatnd the importance of each letter.
Now the reason why the alphabet starts with A and ends with Z, as well as the order of the letters, is another story.
