Growing Apart

"Finding our home a house of pain
See in an instant things can change
And never be the same
Turn on you street and see a car
One where I thought mine should be parked"
- Alien Ant Farm - Hope

There were two boys and they grew up together, then they grew apart.
That is a fact. I think the dictionary defines that as a indisputable statement or interpretation of reality. Or at least it should.
There’s not much to be said after that. It is, after all, a fact and thus valid in itself. I could go into it a bit further, but then, it all might as well be fiction.


They could have been hunters in a tribe. They grew up together, sharing their food and their time. Their families considered they had two sons instead of one, which is absolutely normal in a tribal community, as the children are considered as a public commodity. They go through their rites of manhood at the same and both pass, though they differ in the execution of their assigned and identical tasks.
But one day, while out hunting, one of the boys is captured by a rival tribe. They are slavers. He is taken to that new tribe and eventually he is incorporated by this new society.
He is not treated to badly, taken into consideration that he is a slave. He is even allowed to take a wife. He grows used to his new life, but he never forgets. He never forgets his old tribe, his family or his friend.
So one day he runs away. He returns to his tribe.
He is received back with something well short of a hero’s welcome. His tribe’s way of life seem slightly alien to him. He doesn’t really fit. His old friend has taken a wife for himself and now his life is different. He moved in the tribe’s hierarchy. They no longer have much in common.


They were street urchins in Europe during the first industrial revolution. The grew up stealing bread from the same bakery. They used to sit on the sidewalk of main-street and watch the ladies go by. They went to the same church.
But then one got conscripted into the army. He is trained in a foreign country to fight in a distant front.
But the war eventually ends and he comes back. He finds that the military discipline is not consistent with civilian life. His buddy has led a normal life and has been working all this years in a bank.
Once again, they have nothing in common.


They are two guys. Nothing remarkable about either of them. One day, one goes away for a while. He comes back. Life moves on.
The bottom line is that now these people are just strangers with a past in common.
Nothing more, nothing less. And that’s a fact.
Cuz Stone Cold Said So.