--------------------------To Rearrange the Alphabet-------------------------------------------
(Author's notes: Yo, Inferno in da house! Alright, this is both my first attempt at a fic as well as a response to The Domain's T/D Writing Challenge for June '09. When I read the thread, I thought to myself, 'I have to do this.' Problem was, I had no idea of exactly What to write on. A Final Fantasy title? A book? Then it hit me. I saw a small box which held my answer, which held all answers.
…That's right, folks. When brainstorming, I saw a box of SCRABBLE, and my brain exploded.
And, without further delay or fuss, here it is, my first venture into the great unknown universe as writing! 1… 2… 3… )
Always alone.
Those two words amply described the life of Z. Always alone, never wanted, always greeted with a grimace. No one wanted her. After all, the average player only could use her for a wimpy three letter word, and that was usually, no, almost always 'zoo'.
She cursed the English language. Her biggest claim to fame? Being used as the first letter in the name of a Greek god. Meanwhile, A gets to live it up, being used as a vowel constantly, being the first letter in the alphabet, being the one letter everyone wanted.
And that made Z feel both miserable and angry, a bitter cocktail of emotion.
Meanwhile, from across the board another letter watched her. He knew her pain, her suffering, her loneliness. He, alone among the other twenty-two, shared her misery. He, too, was always used in three letter words, save rare cases in which he was utilized by players who possessed ridiculous vocabularies. The biggest fames he possessed were being used as the first letter in the name of an unused instrument and being an integral part of porn labels everywhere. Yes, X shared Z's sorrow, and he yearned to meet her so that he could tell her so.
And yet, it seemed as if it was never to be.
For X and Z were never in the same word together. He shared Z's hatred for the English language, for it alone kept him from the one other letter with who he might share anything. It alone made him lonely and miserable. It alone made his life a desolate, empty hell.
Then, one day, 'it' happened.
X looked up from his row at his player, who was currently chewing on a pencil like it possessed a nougat center. Suddenly his sister, Y, whispered something into his ear.
Z, she told him, had been played on the board.
X was ecstatic. Perhaps he could be played close enough to talk to her. Last time, he lamented, he had been right out of earshot, as if fate had been mocking him. But now, once again, he reveled, for there was a chance!
Y was suddenly taken up and placed on the board. He noted that his player used his ruined pencil, so thin now that X suspected that it might snap mid-word, to write the word 'way' onto a piece of yellowed paper, along with a pathetically small number beside it.
X sighed. There was no way it would happen. This player seemed to be his dimmest yet, making burnt out Christmas lights look bright in comparison. His vocabulary was smaller than that of a rock, it seemed, and X suspected that he would be in the row until the end of the game.
The other letters cheered. The other player must have assembled an impressive word.
X's player sighed, vainly trying to gnaw more at the poor pencil. He shuffled his letters around, considering different possibilities, but left X alone. The letter sighed. His suspicion, it seemed, would be proven true.
Suddenly, he felt lifted up.
And quite literally. Not only was X now in higher spirits, but he was now dropping towards the board. Towards Z.
This can't be happening, he thought to himself.
The player's sweaty fingers lay him on the square right next to Z, who sighed about having yet another stupid player. X coughed nervously.
"Excuse me."
Z looked at him, interested.
"Yes?"
"Just thought I'd introduce myself. Name's X. We've never gotten played together, or very much at all, it seems."
Z laughed.
"Yes, I know. Miserable, right?"
The two players were now actively arguing on whether 'Z-X-U-I-L-L' was a word. And, as neither of them possessed a dictionary, they'd be busy for quite some time.
"Oh, tell me about it. You know, I still remember when someone used two blank spaces with me in an attempt to spell 'X-X-X'. They actually considered that a word. You can't even pronounce it!"
Z laughed again, a sound X was coming to enjoy.
"At least you're used somewhat properly. I once was in the row of a player who thought that ending every plural word with a Z instead of an S was perfectly acceptable. And his opponent called it every time. By the time he actually did use me, he spelled 'zoo'. And let me tell you how sick I am of that word…."
X laughed this time.
"Probably about as sick as I am of 'tax', or 'fax'. I can't stand being put by A. She's so stuck up."
Z gasped.
"I think the exact same thing!!! She's just so… snooty. Talk about a bad letter…"
X laughed.
"I know. If you're ever next to her, just bring up 'The Scarlet Letter'. The whole 'A is for Adultery' thing shuts her up fast."
"Ha, that's good. I wish I thought of it first…"
She paused for a minute, as if trying to think up the right words.
"Say, X…"
"Yeah"
"Are you sing- no, wait!"
Z panicked as the hand picked her up crudely, whisking her away before she could finish her question. It seemed that the players' argument had not ended well, as both were angrily scooping up letters, throwing them quickly into the Bag.
X sighed. Of course, they hadn't picked him up yet. He had never met Z in the Bag, for some reason. There always seemed to be about twenty letters in between them. He wished it was alphabetical, where at least they would be within speaking distance.
He was suddenly knocked off the board and onto one of the other player's notebooks. He looked at the paper, and how white it was. It was as white as snow, pure. The board was slightly yellow, the color of aged paper or of the wilted petals of a white rose. He wished, at that moment, that it Z could lay beside him, on that clean, white expanse, and that the players would forget all about them. Never again would they be troubled by the limited vocabularies of players of the unpopularity of their respective letters. They could spend a simple, enjoyable existence together.
X sighed wishfully at the thought. Together.
As the player's hand picked him up, holding him tightly between its meaty fingers, X cursed fate. It always seemed to have it out for him. All the times before were just dispiriting, but this? To be so close to her, to actually talk to her, and then suddenly have it taken away was, to X, a proverbial kick in the privates.
He was dropped into the bag next to, of all letters, two A's. He wished that the letters who had multiple tiles would at least differ in personality, but they were all the same.
'If only,' he sighed, 'there were more Z's…'
The Bag's top was drawn shut, and all was dark. X's mood matched the surroundings perfectly.
Then, suddenly, his world was turned upside down.
Once again, this was both metaphorically and literally true, as one of the players had decided to play 'catch' with the Bag. As it flipped in the air, the letters all yelled out in surprise. X was sure that, for a moment, he heard Z's voice among the racket.
The other player shouted at the other 'to quit goofing around'. The player shrugged and tossed the Bag carelessly into the box. It landed with what was to the letters a mighty and earth shaking 'plop'.
X groaned. He had been shuffled to the bottom of the Bag. He was going to curse when suddenly he heard a familiar voice.
"Uhhh… That was worse than when that one player tossed me across the room."
He looked over to his right, disbelieving, and saw Z. She looked over and saw him, too, and seemed surprised. There was a moment of silence between the two until X, with a cough, spoke up.
"So… Come here often?"
(Admittedly, I strayed from the idea of Marriage, but I included three of the required symbols and ideas. 1) The color white, which has a whole paragraph dedicated to it. 2) The idea of life. In fact, X's journey is pretty much a metaphor for live. You live, you angst, you experience troubles and catastrophes, and yet, in the end, everything somehow works out. 3) Friendship. Which can be read between both X and his sister as well as with Z. After all, aren't all relationships in the world just complicated friendships?
Peace out and keep writing, my friends. I hope that non-Domain readers read this too. And, hopefully, somewhat enjoyed at least the absurdity of it. Or the deepness, if you really read into it.
Inferno.)
(Grammar and spelling EDIT. I have edited out a few simple typos and repetitions. Thanks to those who have read this so far, I appreciate it.)