"Could the milkman be the devil?" , by Erik Pevernagie, 100 x 80 cm, Oil on canvas.

Woe betides anyone getting in the way of people that keep on muddying the waters, throwing up smoke screens and clouding issues, to make their dubious motivations less apparent.

When the shine is wearing off, and the underlying cracks of a garlanded lifestyle become painfully apparent, reality may inexorably take its toll and gruelingly reveal the presence of a blatant and hideous gap of irrelevance and vanity.

When some name dropping and eye-rolling chin-strokers are trying to snow us under with an avalanche of swollen narratives, we must never resist puncturing the blown-up balloons of their twisted too-good-to-be-true stories. The sound of bursting balloons may, then, ring, like ravishing music in the ears.

Milkmen are examples of convivial and trustworthy persons in society. They come in the morning and put their milk bottles at our doorstep. We highly cherish this image in our daily life. Lately, though, many people have been infested by distressing events and criminal reports. Distrust has infected the once so open and cordial mood among the members of many communities.

This painting may pose questions: how can we avoid becoming paranoiac, if alleged reliable individuals have victimized us and have turned into devils.

In 2006, milkman Charlie Roberts walked into an Amish school in Pennsylvania, shot ten of the girls before turning the gun on himself. Five died: the youngest two were seven, the oldest was twelve.

The quiet, friendly milkman and family father was a devil, the embodiment of evil, indeed.

His mother Terri Roberts doesn't understand: My son, the mass murderer: "What did I miss? How could he … leave his wife a widow, his children fatherless? Leave them to face the shame and the horror? And the gentle Amish families he had come to know so well in his rounds collecting milk. What darkness and evil could so possess his mind that he would want to hurt them? To rip away daughters as precious as his own? To inflict such pain and loss on another living soul?”

Phenomenon : Reliability , distrust and doubt

Factual starting point : milk bottle and devil's tail