Tiny Town

         As a child, I loved the outdoors and lost myself in imaginative games and stories. I have many tales of the shenanigans and adventures little me got up to, but none compare to the story of Tiny Town. The story of Tiny Town has action and drama, even betrayal, and like all good stories, it had a beginning, the peak of its existence, and a tragic fall. In 2013, around early September, a young girl had a genius idea.

  At the start of fall, inspiration hit. Fall was the perfect time to start building. The forest, usually dense with greenery, had become dry and clearer to walk through, making it much easier to find sticks and navigate the terrain. I wanted to build a fun fort before my two cousins, Reece and Bryson, came to visit.

      It began with a single building, a small hut with a flat roof. Tall enough to stand in and wide enough for several small children to fit. Many other forts followed in the surrounding area, none as great as the Main hut, but all nice in their own right. Not shortly after, I recruited a few of my siblings to help out. At the time, I had four younger siblings and one older brother. We dedicated some of the buildings to be shops and decided to use acorns as currency, which became a problem later. By the time our cousins arrived, everything was pretty much figured out and ready for play.

    Even in Tiny Town's golden era, it kept improving. Once my cousins showed up, I handed out different roles. The boys got stereotypical roles, as well as the girls. I declared myself along with my oldest cousin, Reece, Queen and King.  

    To this day, I’m disappointed I put myself in a lower position than him. Not making myself the “leader” felt like a betrayal to myself after all the hard work I had put in. Reece and I were both raised in very conservative households, we were taught an extreme version of “Men are stronger and better than women and women should submit to them.” So when little me built the town, I made him King because that was what I was conditioned to do. Reece and I are no longer close, because he hasn’t changed as I have. 

    Together, we created paths and further cleaned up our little town. The second day into their visit, Reece and Bryson came running up to our back porch, excited to show off their discovery- cow bones. They had found the skeleton of a cow on the other side of our neighbor's fence and took the rib bones to use as swords. Why my parents didn’t immediately take those away, I have no idea. My siblings and I all grabbed our own "weapons" and used them up until the fall of Tiny Town.

     The golden days weren’t perfect because, as fall dragged on, more and more acorns fell from the trees, piling on the ground. Causing an inflation problem, it got so bad that we had buckets of acorns and hoarded them as though you couldn’t go a step without seeing five right by your feet. Eventually, I set up a value system for them, and no problems followed after that. It was peaceful for a time, too peaceful.

     Boredom crept in, and when leaders get bored, there's only one thing left to do- start a war. It wasn’t only boredom but the realization that I gave leadership to someone who had no hand in the beginning of Tiny Towns' creation. About a year had passed since Tiny Town’s beginning, and being Queen was no longer satisfying enough. I began to construct another village across the pond with teepee styled forts. It never got a name that stuck, so I’ll call it Queenie Vile to erase any confusion. The most notable feature of Queenie Vile was the walls I built. I made them as sturdy as I could, expecting my cousins to try to destroy them once they found out about the betrayal. I then began recruiting people. I knew I couldn’t include everyone in the new “town” because then there would be no one left to fight. I tried to persuade Natalie to join me, but she was more loyal than I. 

     The most important supporter of Queenie Vile was Bryson. I sent him a letter explaining the situation, and he got back to me pledging his support. Regretfully, I remember falling back into my brainwashed way of thinking. In order to convince Bryson to join my side, I told him he could be the king. Bryson wasn’t as violent or outspoken as Reece; he was much younger, which made him easier to convince and coerce. Eventually, when my cousins came to visit again, the inevitable “war” began. Bryson turned out to be more of a bodyguard or puppet king because while he did technically have the title, I was the one making all the choices and ordering him around. First, Reece did his best to trash the place, which he succeeded in all except for the impenetrable walls, which I’d like to believe are still holding strong to this day.  I was very proud of myself in that moment.

      After his little rampage, we had a stand off, which consisted of yelling at each other, a few of the boys swung their cow bone swords at each other, resulting in Natalie getting hurt, and no matter how much we all tried to hush her, she ran to the adults and snitched, promptly ending our “war”. 

      Time passed, and we lost interest. Storms tore away our carefully crafted buildings, and summer came along, bringing poison oak and unbearable heat. The cow bone weapons disappeared over time, possibly thrown away by a parent.  Tiny Town had a strong grasp on me as a kid, and out of all of my childhood adventures, this one is my favorite to tell.