Supposedly, hindsight is twenty-twenty. Hah! As if I believe that crap! Whoever made that up was a liar. Okay, maybe a half-liar, but a liar nonetheless. Why? Well, in life, there are times where you can look back and blatantly see what you need to see. Like after a test. Hindsight is twenty-twenty then. I got question A wrong, totally. Or I can see that I should have written this instead of that.

But, for other things, more complex things, it isn’t true. The what if, the maybe, the what could have been… those types beg to be seen, and yet, are so rarely realized. They hide behind the facade of memory and tear at your brain constantly. You wonder what you could have done. What could have happened? And hindsight doesn’t help you in finding those answers. On the contrary, it only makes it hurt all the more.

If if isn’t sorely obvious, I regret much. Again, surely you ask why. Well, nineteen years ago I proposed to my high school sweetheart. She said yes. I took her to the jewelry store the next day to choose the rings. And… we got in a car wreck.

An idiot drunk. He slammed into the passenger’s side. I can remember the sound of crunching metal. Of a broken scream. Of wet crimson splashing across my face. When I woke up, I found out she was dead. Just like that. My twenty-four-hour fiance was stolen from me. Crappy reality.

After that trauma, I couldn’t really love again. I grew obsessed with work. I got really great at it. My career skyrocketed. My relationships plummeted.

So, the years rolled by like rain on a window. Now, here I am. I’m forty years old today. Whoopie… I’m tapping away this message on my laptop. Sitting in my presidential suite. A birthday cake with forty glowing candles to my left. To the right, presents aplenty. Food flourishes atop my table, scenting everything with a jovial novelty of a birthday party. Music plays on the speaker. Balloons recklessly bounce around the ceiling based on the fan’s whims.

It seems perfect. No, it is perfect. Save for the empty seats. The empty room. The empty apartment. The empty life. I have everything I want besides people. Turns out stuff, money, and all that junk really is just junk.

The funny thing about people is that money can’t buy them. It can buy fake ones, sure. But if you really want someone who genuinely cares, spend your time investing in others, not stocks. Wish I would have figured that out faster. But nah.

I wish I would have tried harder to love again. To keep my friends and family around. To make new friends. New family. To actually live with others. But alas, too late. Heh. Heck, I wish I would have at least tried to enjoy the money I made. Go on cruises. Go somewhere fun and just be free. But I’m far too stickler for that. Too introverted too.

So, I’m done. Patience is all spent up. Hope in life is dryer than the Sahara. I don’t want to live in this pain anymore. I don’t want to regret anything anymore. And so, I’m heading up the river.

Anyways, you’ll find my will printed out and stacked next to the presents. My fortunes go to charity. Help yourself to the food and the presents. I don’t care.

Oh, and no funeral. Just toss me into the incinerator and be done with it. I don’t want to look down, or look up, from the afterlife and see no one there. That’d… be far too pitiful. So, I’ll make it easy for ya. I’m overdosing. Should put an end to it quick and keep things from being messy. Simple and clean. Easy to rub away and forget about. That’s what I am.

But hey, my own fault. Have a great day. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to see what the afterlife is like. You hear so much about it, so hey, maybe it’s actually something. And something good. Unless I screw up there too. Wouldn’t that be the kicker?

Okay. Shutting up now. Bye forever. This is Andy Jameson signing out for the last time.

-Above message recovered on Mr. Jameson’s computer.

-Autopsy confirmed suicide by drug overdose.

-Time of death, Jan 27th, 2010. 5:19 PM.

-Mr. Jameson will be cremated, per his wishes.

When I opened my eyes, I was staring down. Far down. Splotches of color lay swathed over a foreign landscape so distant I felt like I was in the sky. Gray outcroppings of mountains towered over valleys, who were peppered with dashes of greens, browns, reds, and purples of late fall forests.

The more mellow colors were disconnected and sliced by snaking rivers of the sheerest blue and lakes brighter than sunlit eyes. They sparkled like diamonds, some, their waves putting on a magnificent display. Others were glassy still. Simply reflecting the heavens above them. The longest rivers slithered through these forests and valleys and mountains, moving through plains, grasslands, and deserts. The strongest lasted till reaching their mother’s bosom, the wide, seemingly endless expanse of the oceans.

Tiny cities seemed to favor these bodies of water. They either sat close beside them. Or upon them. Their immense girth of congested buildings and roadways turned to simply tiny dots thanks to my height. The roads, as if rivers of dirt, snaked their way across the land creating a vast webbing of interconnected cities, ports, forts, towns, and other such settlements.

They were so tiny. I wagered a single thumb could snuff out an entire metropolis in an instant. Assuming I could reach them.

My sight was only hindered by the occasional puff of frothy cloud lazily rolling over the sky; their shadows danced over everything effortlessly, transforming the bright to a lesser hue, the dark to blacks. To the north rolled a massive, dark wave of a thunderstorm that ravaged a great sheet of ice and snow caps. To the south, only the sun graced the world.

The primary land mass was bizarre. It looked as though a fetus or some warped child curled in on itself, with the spaces between filled by oceans. Or perhaps some type of sloppy circular continent that a god devised but didn’t deem it necessity to finish. I couldn’t quite say. My mind was already quite busy trying to take in the insane scene. As if I was peering into some painting, window, or screen, everything was terribly minute in size.

Maybe some type of game where I was zoomed at to the max. And yet, I could tell it was real. Waves lapped at the shores. The tiny specks of trees moved with the wind. Long trails of shifting smoke rose from the pinhead chimneys.

Wind caressed my skin. Frigid smells of cold moisture tickled my nose. And I could feel myself… falling. Slowly. As if sinking through jelly.

Odder still, I felt so calm. No panic. Just peace. No fear. No survival instinct. I just felt curious.

Before I had time to fully ponder my predicament, a voice interrupted me with, “About time you woke up. I’ve been waiting around for a while… good grief, lazy people are the worst.” I was slightly stunned. She sounded young. Like a girl, and yet, her voice carried a sense of authority and powered maturity that demanded respect.

I quickly turned to look at the speaker and was only met with open sky. To the right, nothing. Left, nothing. Above, below, everywhere, still no one. She said, “Don’t bother. I haven’t bothered to materialize, so you can’t actually bother to see me in the first place.”

“Who… are you?” I asked, now more confused than ever.

“You can call me…” she paused for a moment. Thinking. “Well butter on a bun, I guess you can call me by my all famous name, Chaos. Chaos as in chaos, you know, mayhem, pandemonium, disorder, that sort of thing.” And instantly I felt a bit of fear. That was not a very positive name to be sure.

However, now more curious than ever, I had to ask, “Chaos?”

“Yeah, Chaos. Just Chaos. Nothing big or glamorous slapped onto it. Just plain, one hundred percent unfiltered Chaos,” She explained, sounding proud of the name. Obviously she thought it to mean something important. To me, it sounded far more troublesome. For the afterlife, which I thought it was, I wasn’t expecting such a being to greet me. Chaos… it sounded like some dark angel or god.

She read my mind, seemingly, and answered with, “What, not expecting a dark god known as Chaos to be your official meet and greet?”I answered honestly, “Yes.”

I answered honestly, “Yes.”

“I guess so. Not the most common thing to happen. And this is your first rodeo after all.”

“My first… what?”

“Rodeo. That’s what your world people say, right?”

“My world people? Isn’t this supposed to be… heaven? Or something?”

She let out a slight chuckle at that, “Try something more akin to a summoning than a death and then you’re on the right track there, bucko. The condensed version is pretty simple. I, the almighty, beautiful, amazing, wise, great and powerful Chaos have deemed you worthy of my blessing. For it is a fact that I need someone to stir up insurmountable trouble for this world. To destabilize its entirety!”

She clapped her hands for emphasis, causing my ears to nearly crack from the sonic boom it generated. “For you, my little boring plum muffin, shall turn this world upside down in my name! Copy?”

“…maybe?” I mumbled, not quite sure how to respond to such a resolute explanation of insanity. She, some dark god, summoned me to stir up trouble? To stir up… chaos? “Wait, so basically you just brought me to wherever this is to use me as a prophet of chaos?” It was so purely bizarre that shock didn’t even have a chance to kick it. It was just disbelief.

“More like champion and plaything,” she answered.

“…well at least you’re honest.”

“I find it faster to be honest,” she said, chuckling again, her voice light and buttery and nearly shifting to a giggle. “But don’t worry, you get something great in the deal, Berry Dairy. You get to try out a ton of awesome powers I grant you. And with all those awesome powers so kindly lent to you by the merciful and beautiful me, you can just do stuff. Go chaotically crazy for all I care. As long as you keep me properly entertained, I’ll just watch. I’m nice like that. So appreciate it, my Chocolate Souffle.”

I wanted to ask about the weird nicknames she concocted for me, but instead I asked, “So you’re just forcing me to be your servant?”

“Righto, my Pickled Pepper Picking Pickaloo,” she resolutely declared. “Now enough bitter batter, you have stuff to do and I have Chaos to wreak! Hehe, did you see what I did there? I punned my own name. I’m so punny.” She chuckled again at her own jokes. “Now then, time for you to get started!”

“Wait!” I shouted quickly. “I have questions. I need answers. I don’t know anything about what’s happening right now!

A sigh escaped her, “Fiiiiiine. One question. Just because I’m so benevolent and nice and kind and awesome and amazing and I’m running out of synonyms now… so hurry up and ask before I have to start coming up with random words because I don’t have a Thesaurus with me.”

“Just one?!” I asked in disbelief. Not only was she insane and a chatterbox of oddities, but she was stingy to boot!

“Yep. And that was your question. Bye!” And with that, I began to fall.