Z Sues For New Position In The Alphabet (Fiction)

The letter Z shocked the world today by filing a lawsuit claiming he is being discriminated against by being forced to remain at the end of the Alphabet.

Z, who is represented by the ACLU (Alphabet Civil Liberties Union) in the matter is suing the other 25 letters of the Alphabet, The Letters & Numbers Commission, the writers of The Alphabet Song, and Zorro.

“For far too long, I have stood by and allowed myself to be pushed to the back of the Alphabet,” Z explained to this Modern Philosopher via Skype.  “I will no longer remain silent, and I demand that I be allowed to locate elsewhere in the list of letters.”

Doesn’t Z feel that being last is a place of honor?  “That worked on me for the longest time, Austin,” Z answered with anger in his voice.  “You know who loved to use that argument the most?  A.  The world has to be a sunnier place when you’re at the front of the pack, the first letter out school kids’ mouths when they recite the Alphabet, and the symbol of greatness in scholastics.”

Wow!  I had never even thought of it that way.  I guess you never understand a letter’s plight until you’ve walked a mile in its position in the Alphabet.

“What my client seeks isn’t anything outlandish,” stated Amelia Zane, the lead attorney heading up the ACLU team.  “All Z wants is to move a little further up in the order.  He has brought up the rear for far too long.  Now it’s time for someone else to be the butt of the jokes and the last in line.”

According to Zane, there is legal precedence for the request.  “W used to be known as Upside Down M up until the mid-1830s.  W not only successfully sued for a name change, but he also got repositioned away from M so that he could have his own identity.”

The first thing that caught my attention in all this was that letters have genders.  Are all letters male?  “No, Austin, just the consonants,” Z replied.  “The vowels are all female.”

So where does that leave Y?  “Where does it indeed?” Z countered with a chuckle.

And W used to be called “Upside Down M”????  Crazy!

As for the other letters in the Alphabet, they apparently aren’t too crazy about this lawsuit and Z’s desire to mess with the order of things.  The letters who were willing to speak to this Modern Philosopher for this article did so under the condition of anonymity.

“Who does Z think he is?  The Alphabet has a certain logic and order to it.  We can’t just go moving letters around every time someone isn’t happy.  Then it would all just be this giant mishmash of chaos.  That’s not acceptable!”

“Not for nothing, but Z got his payoff when they assigned point values in Scrabble,” an angry letter told me.  “He got his worth set at 10 points, and I didn’t hear him bitching when that happened.  Shut up and accept your place.”

“I’m not exactly thrilled where I was assigned,” whined a third letter.  “The letters around me stink, they’re rude, and they never shut up.  But I don’t go out and sue to get myself moved elsewhere.  I am where I am.”

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