I Reign A Small Town King

The Big City

Part 3 of 28

Even as a small town king myself, so often I find myself rejecting the prejudice small town morons have about the Big City, essentially that it’s evil. That goes against my competing small town values of prejudging any case. I had the impartial justice bug even as a kid, anytime I was accused of something. “Take your hands off me, you filthy devil,” I remember saying as a kid to one of my accusers, the school principal. That's what I should've said.

Another way to look at it is, Hey, we’re supposedly small town kings! If that’s what they call us, shouldn’t we embrace our royal identity and live out the truth how we have it over everyone else. It’s an injustice, it cries for legal help, to believe anything else. Although a lot of this language about us being small town kings was likely just a cheap shot by the main proponents of the small town vibe against the Big City. Meaning, yeah, sure, you’re a “small town king,” but apart from the debate with the Big City the message was always, “Don't embrace it as a thing,” or “When push comes to shove, we make the rules, we can change them.” A terrible thing as a kid to recognize. “You set up the parameters of my supposed royalty and you can knock ‘em down. 'We’re the ones calling you kings, We giveth, We taketh away.'"

Obviously in a situation like that, where the propaganda is widely touted even as you see how shabby it is -- like finding that all your birthday presents were just cardboard cutouts of the real thing, or your surroundings a Hollywood set when the director yells “Cut,” are things no kid wants to face. “But, but, you said!” “Yeah, kid,” the cynical adult says, “We know what we said. Stick around, clean your ears, there’s no telling how much more you’re going to hear about your so-called promise. You’re promise equals exactly this: The principal bares his ass and everyone lines up on their knees in lockstep to symbolically kiss it.  These are the insights the typical kid doesn’t know what to do with. Maybe just grow up to parade his own backside around the town, with one of two motives, to expose the apparently false teaching that every small town kid’s a king, or to keep embracing it, with the fear that to reject its truthfulness is to make even the promise vanish. Then what are you left with? Shambles, a small town vibe little better than the hated Big City.

I’d love to find the documentation on this stuff. It could be, given their low opinion of us, they were very careful to collate together all the documents, distributing them at meetings and then storing it all somewhere secure. But it could actually be easier to find than we think. A man serves as mayor or principal or even flunky only so long. I’ve seen how these meetings go, in unrelated fields. “We’re going to collect all the papers, etc.,” and the reality's often different. A guy’s talking and accidentally packs his papers home, they’re misplaced, they’re forgotten. Only to be discovered years later in an estate sale. “What have we here? A Nazi plan to make us think we’re all royalty, when, in fact, we’re peons from the word GO? This is what the exalted small town thinks of us, so desperate to keep us from the possibly true Big City propaganda that the Big City turns out the best kids, the true royalty!"

At the very least, friends, it’s disappointing to grow up and suspect your entire youth was a carefully nurtured lie, and now you're left to counsel a bunch of widowed children in their old age. But I simply got out, and here I sit, now a resident of the Big City. And I've seen one big difference here, they don’t even tell you you’re a king. The subject never comes up! Which explains a lot.

Ms. Wiggins, Empress

Knowing Your Destiny

Part 5 of 30

“I don’t know.” Ms. Wiggins pondered a new revelation of Destiny, “This could be more than I bargained for.” This dear one thought it through with many doubts. Which is common enough for those uncommon enough to feel the mantle of history bearing down on them.

One thing seemed sure to help, that it was a done deal. The cards of Destiny had been shuffled, the deck cut, the face cards and lesser numbers mixed as thoroughly as any deck -- and judged "as random as we can make it" by various experts in such things -- and the verdict of history pointed squarely at this one individual.

It’s really something, a surprise, when you've been tagged by Destiny. As life goes, it's certainly better than nothing. Although it so often turns out that the person had a better experience when they were nothing. It is hard for them to be so disappointed.

Maybe you're one who's felt the strange weight of Destiny at least once in your life. It feels pleasant enough, but with hidden dimensions of concern. To be thought of by Destiny and in the running like that, then to have the whole apparatus turn around and choose you is not an experience for the cowardly. Although the cowardly are so often the best recipient, because it’s such a surprise and there's something marvelous about existence in it: The ugly duckling becomes the swan! Or an old dumpsite the best site for the palace!

Our destiny, though, often turns out to be temporary, later growing up with trees and weeds and everything rots away, and someday someone shows up with a camera to document its at least temporary demise. But in Ms. Wiggins’ case, she still reigns as Empress of the World! She didn't slide from it in vanity! Yes, she had her doubts, but they went away, and she said, “If this is the way it’s gotta be…” She took it as an obligation, which grew into the realization day by day that her destiny was sweet, like buckets of candy you never grow tired of. Probably chocolate or peanut butter cups.

But for any one of us, you never know; the Empire might grow tired of you. In which case it’s best to stay humble, hoard your candy, and not take any riches for granted. Keep clipping coupons and pinching pennies. Because you might be right back in the same old spot, your good old life before the new life claimed you, and you'll need to get along with the same skills you had before. Easy come, easy go.

That's what happened in my life. I never got a big head, not too big, I kept the same size head it needed to be to fit through in the old shirts I saved. In Ms. Wiggins' case, she kept most of her old clothes, too, shorts, dresses, or whatever, from the previous realm, the backyard garden. And of course they're still stashed away as she still reigns in power as Empress, a very wise woman.

For many of us, Destiny's way seems like a lot of practical jokes and trickery. And wisely we never give in to it entirely.