Vowel Movements

A'lexa had always been a fussy eater. For example, although she loved monosyllables, terse was not necessary, for she hated the way contracted words tasted. They gave her a lot of trouble. She wouldn't say shouldn't. She could not tolerate couldn't. Weren't wasn't for her. Her vocabulary was too pure, perfect, and flawless. Shouldn't — she just wouldn't.

She felt such words tasted funny. They were not agreeable.

Truth be told, she had always wanted to eat her sentences whole.

She felt that consonants and vowels, together, were what made for a complete meal. Gustatory completeness demanded such be her ethos. Therefore, no way should there be gaps or spaces between letters.

Apostrophes got stuck low on her uvula. She knew them to be a choke hazard. Uncrossed Ts made her fart. And hyphenated words gave her gallstones she couldn't pass. Even umlauts were troublesome; they made her cough. That's why she would use Lyft and not Über to get around. Words that sported l'accents grave, she found, tasted too beurre roux and she would burp béchamel and velouté for days.

She ate at the same restaurant every day, and every day there was a new buffet from where she could select what she found delectable. She loved all the letters, but vowels were her absolute love.

The menu offered As (as for apples), Es (as for eggplant), Os (as for oranges), and even “Ⓤ”s to mark food as Kosher, as blessed by an orthodox assembly of gourmet Jews. And although she was not a Jew, she had always found kosher tasty and yummy.

The letters on the menu supposedly offered a full complement for anyone's healthy, correctly-spelled needs, but not always when she came there. No matter how often she would come, she was often sad to see that she came too late. That was the case today, for a full menu was no longer up for grabs. What she wanted, what she needed, for completeness, suffered at the expense of some lacked exact letter. Or, one, above all. Yet she knew she must eat all of her vowels, lest she truncate her very syllables.

"Sorry," the garçon regretted, "we're completely out of that one vowel."

What there was could never make up for what they lacked. Yes, they had ample As, every damn E, an overage of Os, and under the counter were the Us, should she request.

Therefore, all they had was just the junky stuff.

Her tastebuds really wanted to savor that letter. That one succulent letter she craved was always absent. She had been kept away from one component, that necessary element that would make her happy. Make her feel full.

But she was hungry. She became more hungry every day. That one letter! That one letter was what her body sorely needed. That absent fellow brought each whole sentence down, to relegate any cogent thought to rubble. That left a ghastly taste.

Nevertheless, she had to eat. She was ravenous.

Always hungry, she — begrudged — fed only on the As and Es, and Os and Us. But, as per usual, she could never consume that delectable one vowel —never select, choose, and therefore eat, the way that would fully sate her. There was never that one lone vowel for her.

"Me, myself, and..." she stopped herself.

She felt empty. A breeze blew through a hole of her soul. A burn festered at her gut. Ulcers broke out.

"'You are what you eat, they say,'" she lamented. "So here, my gut, stuffed — replete, boasts an assonance of As, an elegy of Es, an opulence of Os, and the usual ululant of Us, but longs for complete sustenance. But, alas!"

She began to weep.

"My growth can be stunted, my thoughts devolve as an entropy of bemusement, my plans become a ramshackle. No way can one re-combobulate when they lack that one letter. For God's sake, me, myself, and AYE!—" she stopped herself once more.

She took a deep breath, then resumed, "— need that one vowel."

That slash and dot that stood up, proudly erect. And care must be taken not to rotate then downward; or else a shout or a fuss would be construed! Such as "!"

She knew we've evolved to be on a full healthy program of all of the known vowels. But the vowel between the E and the O had been declared contraband. Outlawed. The government forbad that one letter, both long and short, as pronounced, to make unlawful any such vocal utterances. Why? Because of some words? Were some words just uncouth? Or overtly vulgar? Why was law and order so dependent on such eschewal?

Was the "Y" lobby that powerful?

Y! That purulent letter. That vowel wannabe! Never always; and adequate only some. The vowels' bastard stepson.

"Ah," she concluded. "What people as me really need, as an alternate, are a couple of eyes to see where to go." She clapped out loud. "My prayers can be answered by the black market!" she shouted. "That's my salvage."

The black market was always there for those who must supply that one need — to make the butter they need become better. And what they need to make the batter they knead better, too. Yet, excellent health depends — needs — that lone vowel, because there's just no replacement for the ol' slash'n'dot. To extrapolate and replace further other vowels was a fool's errand, for there was no such word as "botter," and the thought of the you-know-what letter just would not appeal to anyone as good taste.

"We have the letter you want, lady," stated the shady man at the street corner.

"You know the one?" she asked?

"Not A, not E, not O, and not U, correct?"

"Aye! Aye! You've got that letter?"

"Aye, lady. You have my money?"

"Aye," she answered. "Here."

A'lexa reached for her wad of cash. She handed the man what she had. He counted the money and beamed. He reached around the corner where another shady man was, who handed a box over to A'lexa.

She clutched the box and ran.

Alone and unseen, she began to gobble down the contents of the box. She suffered a paroxysm of gluttony.

She stopped.

Some aspect of what she ate was very wrong. A gut-wrenched trouble brewed. Her stomach started to rumble. Dysrhythms of sounds began to churn and tumult.

Her sustenance, however, lacked all the stuff she needed for her health. How could that be? She had purchased her contraband from a reputable vendor, even though he traded on the black market. Had she been cheated?

Had what she needed been swapped to another type of vowel?

Her organs contracted. Papules and macules and eczematous wheals erupted and wept; welts festered malodorously. Her gut unraveled. She felt a sudden urgency. She felt she could explode. Gastroesophageal reflux ensued. She became nauseated. What she had eaten lacked a type of healthy completeness and, actually, was dangerous. She convulsed. There was great danger.

Then she purged.

She began to have sudden volumes of vowels exude from her. She began an agony of uncontrolled vowel movements. As and Es and Os and Us.

And — what were those?!

Ys!

That bastard! That reprobate. That corrupt black market! That bastard had laced her purchase: Ys — and not the one letter she desperately needed. He had thought she wouldn't know.

But Ys were more than just a poor replacement; Y-venom was lethal!

A'lexa checked her grammar. She attempted to pronounce. She lockstepped to a rhythm of meter, but could not speak. She attempted to elocute. She even sang, but what came out of her was garbled, croaky nonsense.

Up and down her song wavered harsh, off-key, and cacophonously. She sought harmony by what alphabet she had, but the Ys were just too deadly.

And so A'lexa succumbed as just another overdose. Lost to the data. When the autopsy was done, the coroner just shook her head and recorded the causes of death:

• Toxyc Yndygestyon and
• Yntestynal poysonyng.