Loneliness

Parents. Family. You love 'em. You hate 'em. You can't live with 'em because they drive you flippin' nuts! But you can't live without 'em either. How many times have you argued over something, doesn't matter if it was big or small, and thought the world would do JUST FINE if they just got off your back and ceased to exist?

What if it came true?

In "The Tribe" ... it did.

If you followed "The Tribe's" first season, you saw what the world was like 7 months or so after all the adults died. It was still raw, still violent, still the worst the chaos could be as kids struggled to come to terms with a new reality.

There was a very brief throwaway reference from Bray, talking to the Mallrats, reminding them of the worst days when the Virus began destroying everything. Bray said, "And when The Loneliness came..."

It wasn't much more than that, and I don't recall it ever mentioned again during the series' 5-year run, but I remember the powerful punch I took to the gut when I realized all he meant. "The Loneliness" was the time it finally sank in. When you realized that this was real, that the adults really were dead. They weren't coming back. What you were living wasn't a bad dream that you could wake up from...or chaos that some adult was going to show up and make everything the way it was. When that reality hit, then you could mourn. Then you could admit, at least to yourself, that you loved your parents and your brothers and sisters. You depended on the kind of life you had led more than you could know. No amount of pleading could bring that life back. No prayers. No tears.

"The Loneliness" was exactly that: You were alone. What you do, how you live...or die...all of that was in your hands whether you were old enough to handle it or not.

I think "The Loneliness" has other meanings, too. It wasn't just some condition in Tribe-world. Loneliness will hit you whether you're ready for it or not.

-Chyna

Photo source: copyright Cloud-9 "The Tribe"