Blog 7: The future ain't what it used to be.

Devon awoke suddenly, and wished he hadn’t. His dreams, if he had any, were often centered around his past, rather than his future. Devon often wondered why people have deja vu, for it never happened to him. He lay in bed, attempting to clear his eyes of the annoying morning haze, but failed; and scoffed at the thought of being able to predict the future in his dreams. In his usual lethargic and sour manner, devon rolled his skinny frame out of bed, and looked at himself in the mirror next to his door. To Devon, it was unclear what exactly he was looking at, but it it wasn’t the room behind him, and he certainly wasn't looking at himself. Sometimes Devon felt that, in the mirror, he could see all the different people he wanted to be standing just to the left and right behind him, with his real self at the forefront. It seemed like the metaphorical Devon’s standing beside him were like outfits in a wardrobe, you could put on whichever outfit you wanted at anytime, to hide real person, the naked person, inside. To Devon though, everyone was naked, many years of looking into the mirror taught him that. He often wondered how easy it was to strip people completely of their outfits, and expose them for who they really are.

John had taught him this, his main abuser during his younger years in England, he lived on the street that divided two gangs in the slums of london. directly across the street from his house was one gang, and the side he lived on was the other. Devon however, being the young kid that he was (and given the fact that his parents were raging alcoholics) any time spent out of the house was time well spent, even if that did mean his daily beatings by older teens who liked to impress the girls with their skills in throwing a fist or two at a seven year old kid. Perhaps it was these daily beatings that made Devon tough, perhaps not physically, but mentally, because he learned that if he didn't scream in pain, he would get hit more and harder till he did, but if he screamed too much, he would get hit harder so he would shut up. From this, he learned how to politic situations while he was in pain, too think only to protect himself, and not anything else. Looking back, Devon knew that John had helped him, helped him realize the secret to people, the key to life, the key to surviving the next day.

“We are all piranhas,” Devon said quietly to himself. He took one more glance at the mirror, and was on his way out the door and into the kitchen to find himself a small bite to eat before work, but realized that he had been standing there for almost 15 minutes; and made a beeline toward the bathroom.