The Commune, Part 1

Mini Country

by Lynn Kelly
Special to the New Yorker


Over a year ago, my editor at the "New Yorker" gave me the idea for this story. He was surfing through the Internet and came across a website about a group of minis who were building a commune in Oregon. There was nothing unusual about that; here in Manhatten we have several mini ommunities, most of them centered around NYU or Columbia.

"No, no, you don't understand," he countered. "Those groups were set up as a part of the larger community, by normal people for the benefit of the
minis. This is different." He tapped the screen to draw my attention to the website. "These folks have gone on their own and set up shop out in the
wilderness, in total isolation."

That was interesting. The Little Tree Collective was a group of ecologically-conscious people who had decided to become minis in order to help conserve resources and live more in harmony with nature. They'd organized themselves over the Internet, using this website as a central meeting place, and found themselves some land in south-central Oregon, near the border with California.

There were a few photos on the site, but as I looked around, I saw that there was little activity lately. They supposedly had broken ground a year earlier. Are they still around? If so, are they making a go at it?

The more I dug around, the more facinated I was with their project. They were trying to do something independent of the Giants, as they call
normal-sized folks. The minis that I see everyday here in New York are anything but independent. For the most part, they are in the custody of
Giants, serving them as pets or toys. Many of them have made themselves this way voluntarily, but there are some, especially from Latin America,
Eastern Europe and the Far East, who are minis against their will. Numbers are hard to come by, but the FBI estimates that 30% of the minis in this country were brought to these shores by human traffickers.

Now that I was intrigued, I started looking for more information. A search of public records over the net enabled me to pinpoint exactly where their
parcel of land was located. I travelled to Oregon to visit the area and ask the residents about what was going on.

My inquiries led me to Ben and Hattie Solomon, a retired couple living on a small acreage near Crater Lake, in the heart of the Cascade Range. They were lovely people, very warm and generous with their time and hospitality. The Solomons knew the people at Little Tree very well: they were their liason with the outside world, as it were. They were sympathetic to their cause, and although they were unwilling to shrink themselves, offered all the support they could. The Solomons allowed them to use their address as a mail drop, and they would visit the collective often in order to deliver items unobtainable in the wilderness, such as medicines, tools and books.

The Solomons were very gracious, but they were also very concerned about the privacy of the commune members. It took me a while and a dozen emails back and forth to convince them of my seriousness. The commune was interested in
getting their message out, but they also wanted to preserve their isolation from the curious public. It was touch and go, but they finally agreed to
allow me to visit and live with them for a time. There was one condition that was not negotiable: I had to become a mini.

---

For the benefit of those readers out there who are unfamiliar with the mini process, here is a brief summary.

The mini pill was introduced to the world about six years ago, at a press conference held in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Nanotechnology experts at Harvard and MIT had developed a process that could quickly reduce the size of organisms. The main attraction was Dr. Rolf Gershwin, who had earlier reduced himself to half of his original height.

The news generated a sensation. The Food and Drug Administration approved the treatment, which took the form of a pill containing nanomachines
tailored to the subject's DNA, thereby removing the possibility of a shrinking plague.

As it turned out, the practical limit for shrinking a human was down to 1/3rd his or her original size. Anything beyond that was dangerous. The human body is the most complex organism known, and shrinking someone reduces his or her level of complexity, because that person now has fewer cells. Shrinking a person to less than 1/3rd his height runs a very high risk of brain damage and trauma to the internal organs.

It is possible to restore a mini to his or her original height, but it is a slow process. For the same reason that it is easier to knock down a wall than it is to rebuild it, so too is it more difficult to restore matter to someone in an organized fashion than to take it away.

What happened next was extraordinary. There were people out there who actually wanted to be shrunken. For other people, keeping a mini person as a sort of exotic pet became the height of fashion. Here in New York, for example, it is not uncommon to see the bright and the beautiful going about town, with a mini in tow, being led about on a leash.

Demand for minis skyrocketed as they became valued as symbols of wealth and status. Since the number of people who wanted to shrink themselves to the
size of toddlers was rather small, a black market in minis began, importing them into North America, Japan and Europe from places like Bulgaria, Costa
Rica, Indonesia, and even Ethiopia and India. Needless to say, the vast majority of these minis are women, often little more than girls.

The FBI and U.S. Customs do what they can, but since the demand is so great, their efforts amount to little more than spot enforcement. The minis are displayed openly; their owners are not worried about arrest of procecution.

The first reaction for Giants when seeing a mini is often something like "oh, how cute". In the eyes of most people, minis are little more than
children, meant to amuse but not to be taken seriously.

I was able to get a first-hand look at this phenomenon by entering their world. Everything you are about to read really happened to me and to other minis.

---

Before I set out on my adventure, I had to wrap up a lot of things here in New York. I finished a free-lance story that I was doing for "Rolling
Stone". I also had to get my affairs in order. Since I was going to be gone for a while, I sublet my apartment in Brooklyn to a friend who needed a
place. My furniture went into storage and I arrainged things with my bank to set up automatic payments for my bills.

When I broke the news about my plans, reactions varied. My parents thought I was out of my mind to do something like this. My journalistic colleagues thought it was a great idea, but of course, they would never actually go
through with it themselves.

One of my old friends from Wellesley, a tall redhead that I'll call Susan, became a mini about a year and a half ago. She's now a little less than two feet tall and lives with her younger brother and his family up in Westchester.
I went out to visit her, to see if she was well and get her thoughts.

Susan seemed well adjusted to me. She spent most of her time with her niece, a pretty six year old named Leslie. It was clear that Susan and Leslie were very fond of each other; it was also evident that it was Leslie who was calling the shots in their relationship. But Susan didn't seem to
mind it at all. In fact, she enjoyed being with Leslie, and thought that my shrinking was a wonderful idea.

So, I tied up my loose ends and made my goodbyes. I'd made arrangements with the Solomons for them to keep in touch with my editor and my folks and
let them know that I was okay. And I made sure to pack light: I brought with me the smallest digital camera I could find, some of those golf pencils, and a package of 3x5 index cards.

I feel that I ought to say a little about myself, because it may have some bearing on my story. I'm 32 years old, never married, no kids, so I don't
have any encumbrances. I'm a graduate of Wellesley College and went to NYU Law School for a year before dropping out. My politics are liberal/green, which gives me a little insight into what the Little Tree community is about. I have short blond hair and I'm 5 feet tall with a petite frame.

There you have it. Now, on with the show.

---

The connecting flight from Salt Lake City to Eugene, Oregon went by quickly and uneventfully. The Solomons picked me up at the airport and took me out to their home near Crater Lake. I stayed there for a couple of nights in order to get over my jet lag.

We finally headed out to the commune on the morning of April 4th. We drove a few miles down the highway and then turned off onto a dirt road. The commune occupies about 100 acres of land, to ensure their privacy. We got to the end of the road, stopped and got out of the pick up truck.

"Ok, here's where we leave you," Ben said. He set a covered plastic tub at the side of the road. "This is for your things that you want to leave
behind. I'll come pick it up later."

We hugged and then the Solomons got back into their truck and drove away. After a few minutes, I couln't even hear it.

I looked around. I was in a lush, dense forest. The dirt road looked like it was barely maintained, as grass was inching its way back onto it. It stopped abruptly, and then a small footpath went off into the forest.

As I said before, I'd packed light. The pencils, cards, and camera were in a small paper bag, of the sort that schoolchildren use for their packed
lunches. I pulled the lid off of the tub and set my purse inside. I would have no need for money, credit cards, or a drivers license. I did keep the mirror and a small tube of lipstick, putting them in the paper bag.

I was completely alone. The shrink pill was in the pocket of my flannel shirt. I took it out and examined it. My doctor had referred me to a lab
that could make it for my DNA; the magazine picked up the tab for it.

Without any furthur ado, I put it in my mouth and swallowed.