Life has always been chaos. From the littlest of little to being a fully grown man. Family, school, work, all a harangue about Murphy’s Law. I moved a lot, and for a long time. My father dealt methamphetamine. Mom left a long time ago. Looking back, I held a lot of resentment for her about that. Home life was walking on eggshells. A man on amphetamines is one that is prone to making rash decisions. I would go days without eating. School attendance was difficult. I could tell I was different. Most days my father would be gone. When he was around he’d strike me for small things. If I peed on the seat, if I cried, if I slammed the door to his truck. I felt that powerlessness. I have a mouth, screaming. Praying to God that someone would rescue me. I carried that powerlessness into my teenage years.

  Years of getting beat down, physically and mentally while the world around me kept moving as if nothing happened. The cruel indifference of everyone around me. I graduated high-school and moved out of my father’s house. I moved to Tampa. It was the first time I felt in control of something. Some decision that was mine. Though it was just an illusion. Chaos was the only life I knew. All my relationships were marred by the chaos that ran through my blood. My mind was wired for it. I won’t lie, I was a piece of shit. I fell into the same lifestyle I grew up seeing my dad in. At 18 I graduated from smoking weed to shooting up methamphetamine. It was an incredible feeling, just getting hit with this 18 wheeler of euphoria. I kept at it for years. Destroying everything I touched. I became that chaos in other people’s lives. I didn’t care. I had the mindset the world was a terrible place. One where I could also be indifferent to the suffering of others. I did hardcore crimes. I robbed, I committed home invasions. It felt comfortable.

  One night, my drugged up friend Mark, as big of a loser as me, got wind of a potential big score. It was a simple in and out. No alarm, no cameras, no curious people out at night in the area. Evidently it was all in a room, unattended. I could hardly believe it when we cased the place. When the time came it was easy. We were in and out, no one was home. We made out with expensive watches…. $50k in cash… and as much gold as we could physically carry. At the time, I was incredibly stupid and na?ve. I thought we had gotten away with it. We were in the process of finding a fence to launder things through. I was driving my shitbox civic in some Tampa suburb. I went to a bar and ordered a vodka sprite, my go-to for some hair of the dog. I was in high spirits. I’ve come away with an incredible haul. Astronomical haul. I sat down and nursed my drink a bit. Then this middle aged man walks in and pulls up a stool next to me. This was an immediate flag. He looks at me.

  “Are you Luke Ritten?”

  The thoughts started to swirl through my head. Who is this dude? I’ve never seen this guy in my life. I wasn’t afraid of him.

  I said “Yea”

  He pulled out his badge and told me he was with the state police. My pulse jumped. But why? Did one of the people I run get busted and they want information? The robbery was the last thing on my mind. There was nothing indicative we were tracked or even caught. Then he continued.

  “You had a busy night Monday. Took a lot of stuff that didn’t belong to you.”

  “Shove it dickhead. I didn’t do shit”

  “Well… You can tell me whatever you want at the station. Mind heading out to the car with me. We can do this like men, or I can have a few of my colleagues come in and we can humiliate you.”

  I felt sweat on my forehead. My body temperature violently went up and down. Should I run? What do I do now? I took a long pause, chugged the cocktail and stood gesturing him to lead the way. He didn’t cuff me. We just walked out and into an unmarked patrol car. The ride to the station was tense and quiet. I didn’t say anything, which was fine because he wasn’t asking anything.

  We made it to the regional headquarters, and we walked into a generic interrogation room. He told me to sit. So, I sat. I just looked at him waiting for him to speak. When he did, I could feel the next 15 years of my life be nothing more than walking around the yard in a medium security facility, working for 20 cents an hour.

  Turns out Mark got stupid and decided to deposit $25k into his bank account. Which would have been a “him” problem, but it only made him look super suspicious when he tried to hawk some gold coins that were far above his pay grade. The owner of the shop got suspicious and called it in. The owner told Mark that he needed time to gather the funds, since the amount these things were worth was more than the shop owner had. Mark, not being a bit discerning or cautious did just that. Turns out the owner took a few photos and sent them to a cop friend. I guess our little robbery that went off without a hitch went off with a hitch. Everything we stole was reported missing. Having it was hotter than the sun. All of it, recorded, marked, reported stolen. And honestly, with the sounds of it, the guy we robbed was well connected in many ways.

  A lot of which weren’t legal.

  I guess this was just an inevitability. The detective said he worked major crimes, and told me that stealing 6 figures worth of stuff was “definitely a major crime”. How’d they get to me? Mark sang like a canary. It was evidently all my idea, and I forced him to do it with threats to his life.

  When all was said and done, I was looking at decades. I spent 6 months in the regional jail, just going through the motions. Jail… Jail sucked. But, I discovered the need for routine. The need for order. When the time came to figure out what to do with me they gave me two options: join the army as an infantryman or go be an inmate. I knew we were in the middle of the war on “terror”. But, honestly, even the possibility of 5 minutes of freedom was too much to pass up. That and with the revelation I needed order in my life, I chose the former. And about 10 days later I was on a bus to Fort Benning Georgia to do training at Sandhill. For a time, I had order. I had routine. I had a purpose. I started thriving. The brotherhood of it all. Then came time to go to my unit. The 10th Mountain Division in Fort Drum. And off I went.

  Getting to my unit, I learned what real pain was. Hazing 24/7. Three weeks out of every month was spent training. Training where sleep would be a couple hours a night, but usually every 48 hours. It was pure chaos. I was forced to get into bloody fist fights with other privates in my platoon and squad. Marching on broken feet. Hypothermia. Spending hours in the mud in the rain. Infantry OSUT was club med compared to this place. It made me wonder if I made the right choice not going to prison. Then came time to deploy.

  We went to the Arghandab River Valley in Afghanistan. Honestly, it was more relaxed than my day to day outside of constant pot shots from methed out jihadis as well as some of the scariest IEDs and EFPs. At some point I gave up on the will to live, and I just existed again in the chaos. The platoon had a kill squad going out some nights and just massacring people. I didn’t say anything. I knew doing so would get me killed. Friendly fire happens, and more times than people would like to admit, it is intentional.

  Then came the day where I got hit in the leg with a 7.62. Tore some tendons. The Nigerian kid fumbled through a nine line, the adrenaline surged and I felt no pain. I got lifted to Kandahar. I got stabilized and got told I’m getting put out to pasture. They sent me home to Walter Reed and then to the WTB in Fort Lewis. It was a year of waiting and getting dicked around. Then the day I went from Specialist Ritten to Mr. Ritten, I spared no time. I packed what little I had and drove off base to head to the Idaho panhandle, more specifically Coeur d'Alene.

  I got a livable amount from the VA and was able to buy a small house with a yard. My life quickly turned into a different type of chaos. One where I just kind of drifted. No goal. No reason to get up, which I rarely did in fact get up. One day I walk to the liquor store and there is this dog. Handsome fella. No tags, no owner. Scared as hell. I went to pet him and it broke my heart how timid the poor guy was. I bought some hotdogs in the store and I enticed him to head with me all the way home. I called animal control and they came and got him to see if he was chipped. I followed up asking about the dog, and the animal control guy said he was going to be put up for adoption. And I felt a moment where my heart broke. A dog left alone, no one. I couldn’t stomach having him wading the waters alone and that day I drove and got him. Poor thing couldn’t stomach car rides. He would urinate all over the place in fear. I could tell I needed to be a rock. A routine for him.

  For the next few years, I woke at 4am, fed him, went to the gym at 5am, came home and walked him at 6:15am then played fetch with him at 12, 3 and 6 in the good weather. For the first time since bootcamp, I felt this strong comfort in my routine. In my order. I had a clear goal, the well being of my dog, Edgar. Every night he’d jump into bed and cuddle up next to me. He’d lift up like a prairie dog all the time for treats. He’d nuzzle his head into my chest. Hearing him being comfortable. Day by day Edgar started trusting people more. He once was weary of everyone and scared of a mouse, now was playful, vocal and loving. Everyone who came by loved Edgar. Like most dog owners, I took obscene amounts of pictures of Edgar. A life emerged that I never thought possible. I thought chaos was the only thing my existence would amount to. But Edgar chipped away at that. Every morning walk was a beautiful meditation. I’d brush his fur every day. I was diligent in all manners of his care. Whenever I felt the world becoming too much I would run my hands through his fur and caress his head, as well as behind the ears. He’d look up at me and the depth of his gaze was boundless. The incredible love he brought. I felt it all. And for the first time in my life I had order, routine and happiness. It was a simple existence. But fate had other plans for me.

  A warm night in June I get a knock at my door. I looked through the peephole and I see this distraught woman. I didn’t really think, and I opened my door to help her. It was a pretty safe area and I’d rather help a lone woman in need. I turned the lock and as soon as I opened the door a bit three men pushed and barged in. They had firearms, and I, I didn’t have a bit of protection. I pleaded with them.

  “Take what ever you want, just please don’t hurt my dog. You can take whatever you want”

  Masked intruder 1 hits my temple with the butt of his pistol. I crumple. Theres blood everywhere, it’s hard to see. Edgar is terrified and is whimpering in the corner. I keep trying to console him, but that seems to just aggravate the men. They ziptie my hands. Edgar is in the corner, urinating all over the floor. Crying out. I sat there powerless again. Powerless to everything happening. I could hear them tearing up my house. They started toppling my furniture. Becoming more and more aggravated.

  “Where is the stuff?”

  I have no clue what he’s talking about. The only thing of value I have is Edgar.

  “I have nothing of value”, I said.

  One of the masked men grabs me by the collar and shakes me violently.

  “I swear to god I will end you if you keep playing games”

  I swear to him on everything I love that I have nothing. The other two masked men emerge from tossing my house.

  “We found 40 dollars and an old iphone. The laptop is worth like 250.” one says.

  The real aggravated one gets mad and throws a right hook to my face, telling me he’s sick of my “fucking games” and to tell me where the safe is.

  “I don’t have a safe” I told him.

  I really didn’t. I had nothing of value to store and all my documents were in an old briefcase I got at a thrift store. I had no clue where he got the idea I had anything. I never even hinted at having airs to even put on. The only thing of value I have is Edgar.

  “Fine, you want to be a stupid bitch, I’ll show you what we do to stupid bitches” he yelled at me.

  There was a feeling in my gut, a terrible one. And as soon as the home invader took a step to Edgar I became frantic. I pleaded with him, I told him I’d give him my house. My car. That he could have everything in every bank account. But it fell flat.

  The man tightly grabbed Edgar by the fur and dragged him in front of me. Edgar cried out. He was yelping so loud. I was so powerless. The feeling was more intense than I have ever had it. To see something you love with all your heart be brutalized in front of you. I felt a pressure in my head and tears were welling in my eyes.

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  “Please don’t hurt him, Please, I beg you!” I pleaded over and over again.

  He had the two other home invaders pin Edgar down. I could see Edgar thrashing against their weight.

  “I came here to take something valuable.” He said as he grinned.

  He pressed the barrel to Edgar’s head.

  The world stood still.

  I felt as if I was swept away, I couldn’t process what was happening.

  Then he pulled the trigger. Shards of Edgar’s skull hit me in the face, along with blood going everywhere. I felt too weak to talk. I choked on my words. To grief stricken to feel any kind of rage.

  They chuckled as they let go of Edgar’s lifeless body. All three of them laughed. They pistol whipped me again. Told me that they thought it was funnier to keep me alive. They grabbed the woman who was initially at the door and they left.

  I was left in my house ziptied, whaling and kneeling next to Edgar’s body. I felt the weight of my failure. The cruel reality of the brutal world. The lack of reverence for life. That order, that simple life, was ripped away from me and burned to ash just for the amusement of a few criminals. I had to sit there, sit there and look at the blown apart head of my best friend in the world. The one who solely relied on me. The one who looked to me as his rock. His protector. The image was burned into my head. I still remember it today.

  Police came about an hour after they left since a person walked by my open door and saw the scene in my living room from the open front door. I gave a statement. I had to come home and alone clean. I felt numb as I carried Edgar’s body to the backyard. I started digging his grave. Every bit of dirt moved, the weight of the circumstance tripled. I got down about 5 feet, and laid Edgar to rest. Every bit of dirt shoveled onto his corpse, the scene of his being head blown apart in front of me played in my mind.

  The next few days were a blur. I got on a darknet market directory and found a suitable marketplace to order heroin with Monero. Waiting for it to arrive was brutal. I was in a constant haze of drunkenness. When the heroin came I just cooked it in a spoon, sucked it through cotton and found an old reliable vein in my arm and shot it. For the first time in days my pain was gone. I was just in a comfortable, like a warm blanket wrapped around me. The use went off the skids quickly.

  One day the police came and told me they arrested 3 men and another woman from tips and recordings from another house they did a robbery on. The Police got more from the person they tried to rob, who was more prepared than I was for such a situation. They asked me to come to the station to identify if they were the ones who robbed my house. I had four line ups, and from feedback I had 4 positive ID’s with people who were grabbed for the other robbery. Then the legal process started.

  Court was a hectic place. My nerves were shot just being around all the activity. I did enough heroin to not get sick while I sat and watched the whole legal process unfold. They caught sight of me in the audience multiple times at the arraignment, which they would smile and wave at me. Sometimes they would pant like a dog at me.

  Judge Stein seemed to be overly empathetic. She saw a charity case, a group of people that could be rehabilitated. She took their sob stories about hard lives to heart. Every empathetic word from the judge made me see double, it made my head dizzy. The prosecutor was going exceptionally light, arguing that their circumstances were to blame and that putting them in prison would just perpetuate the prison pipeline and destroy any chances they had at life. The prosecutor brought up a plea deal which included 15 weeks incarceration and 4 years’ probation. They said that since no one got killed, and their story, which they believed was that I made the situation worse by fighting them. I was unsure of what exactly their story was about my house, but whatever it was it was far from the truth.

  After each docket spot my head was spinning. Seeing my pain was worth so little to the system. The prosecution asked if I was fine with the plea deal offered. I gave an emphatic no.

  In the end, it didn’t matter.

  The men got 3 years probation and 12 weeks jail which was completed with time served by the end. The woman was seen as an accessory, but claimed she was coerced with violence to be bait for people. When they got the sentence, they all hugged and their families cheered. I felt a real pit in my stomach. A visceral disgust, another confirmation of how corrupt everything is. To have someone take the most important thing away from you in such a brutal way and be able to walk away with little care about what they destroyed.

  I didn’t want to be here anymore. There was nothing for me in this world. There was no purpose I felt. I was just a deeply damaged man, with nothing of value outside a healthy dope problem. That’s when I decided to end it.

  That night I put on some chill music. I cooked a monster shot. Ten times more than I would do in a couple days. I sat with my thoughts for a bit. I decided there was no reason to leave a note. I had no one that’d care one way or another about my passing. I was just another lonely man at the end of his rope.

  I stuck the needle in, I drew back the plunger. A shot of red burst into the syringe. I felt instant euphoria. I quickly pushed it all in. Within seconds, blackness. Just out.

  I came to in a dark void, a dark void with a table and two chairs. One was occupied by a well-dressed, in shape, well -groomed man in his 40’s. He had slicked back hair and his high cheek bones and strong jaw stood out. He sat smoking a cigarette, then called out to me. In the moment, I had no clue what any of this was. I had an odd fondness for him.

  “Luke, have a seat.”

  I reluctantly sat in the other chair. The table was a fine mahogany, incredible detailed work with leather studs lining the edges. The chairs were extremely comfortable. The furniture looked very decadent.

  “Do you know where you are, Luke?” he asked.

  I shook my head. I felt tense. Like I was on the precipice of being swallowed.

  “You’re in the void. The area between life and death. It’s a special place. In Tibetan Buddhism they’d call the Ch?nyi Bardo. Yourself is gone. You’ve shed your ego. Do you know what kind of crossroads you’re at?” he remarked.

  I shook my head again, tension loosening in my chest.

  “What crossroads am I at?” I asked with a good amount of curiosity and nerves.

  The man took a long drag, blew it out and studied me.

  “You can either incarnate again. The life you’re destined for now is a rotten one. I won’t ruin the surprise, but it is awful.”

  “What is my next choice?”

  “You can be liberated by me.”

  Liberated? It felt like a real strong choice of words. My gauge of the man was ominous.

  “I don’t even know your name.” I told him.

  “Call me Mr. Windsor”

  “Odd name. What are you? A reflection of me? Are you here to guide me?”

  “You could say guide you. I’m here to offer you purpose. Order in the world”

  “There is no order in the world.”

  “You just can’t see it. Every choice you’ve made has led you to this moment. This choice. Your childhood…”

  “You know nothing about my childhood” I yelled cutting him off.

  Mr. Windsor just smiled, tilted his head and took a breathe.

  “I know how your father beat you; I saw the resentment you built for your mother since she left a hell you were trapped in. I know you prayed for order all your life. Some reason to what seems to be enigmatic disorder. I could see you receive your prayer in life to have it torn from your hands and immolated in a cosmic humiliation ritual. I saw you plead with God. I saw your life go limp. I saw the moment Edgar..”

  I let out a wail. Everything he said was spot on. Resentment, the deepest desire. The hopeless nights I spent deluding myself that maybe tomorrow would bring a brighter day.

  “I saw the order Edgar brought you. The routine. The reason to wake up in the morning. The reason to not fall back to the ways of your youth. I saw it brutally torn from you. And most importantly I can see your deepest desire.”

  “What’s my deepest desire?”

  “You want to drag the world through the same chaos that swallowed you. To bend it, break it, shape it in your own bruised hands. To be the force no one can move — not time, not grief, not even nature itself. Anything to make sure you never feel that helpless again, like you did when they killed Edgar right in front of you.”

  I felt a burning in me. It was spot on in ways I’d never considered.

  “What do you want in return” I asked

  “I want you to be a conduit for my will.” he responded.

  I thought it over. I had a lot of questions. What is his will? What happens to me? What happens to my agency? What is the monkey’s paw going to do for this wish?

  I looked down. I had no reason to trust him, but I had no reason to distrust him. He existed in this existential grey area.

  “What ever you choose, you have to choose now.”

  He said it with urgency.

  A pressure built behind my eyes. Some fates, I realized, are worse than death.

  “How can I trust you?” I asked

  “You have to make that leap. I’ve given you the options, sink or swim. Be ruled or rule. I can’t force you to make the right decision but what ever you decide you must do it now.”

  I hesitated. So many things went through my head. What if he’s lying? More, what if he’s not. I stood at an impasse. What would I become? I stuttered, the pressure of this choice was heavy.

  Then, from the void, something ancient stirred in me. Resolve. Cold, steady. A piece of myself I hadn’t touched in years — the part that didn't beg, the part that endured.

  “Yes”, I said softly.

  The void warped into intense light, Mr. Windsor walked up to me and put his hand on my chest.

  “Time to see the world in the eyes of a God”

  He thrust his hand into my chest and pulled a luminous orb out. I was rigid, I couldn’t move. He exhaled a single, long breath that enveloped the orb. Slowly, red veins surrounded it. It went from a mellow blue to a pulsing grey with red veins moving around it.

  “You’ll hear from me soon”

  Mr. Windsor thrust the orb back in my chest and with incredible force I was pulled back faster than I could comprehend.

  I woke up in a hospital bed.

  I’m not sure how they found me or how I got there at first.

  Evidently, they got an anonymous wellness check that seemed serious enough to warrant breaching my door. I was intubated for a few days. I questioned my experience. But, then something peculiar happened. The nurse came in and I understood her life. A deep and complex perception about her deepest secrets and darkest desires. I could see that she often daydreamed about killing patients. One day she would, but that first kill would not be me.

  A janitor broomed outside my room in the ICU and I could tell he was going to die in 10 years to a drunk driver. Now, I have no basis for any of these things. In a milieu of fog, but with incredible clarity. I knew I’d be there for 2 more days. I knew exactly what to say and when to say it. Sure enough, 2 days later I had an interview with a psychiatrist. He offered me the standard medication, since they were treating my overdose as a suicide attempt. The psychiatrist was an avid collector of a certain type of illegal content. It was hard to look at him without losing my temper. I was extremely disturbed at how dark and dirty the world is without the comforting lies we put on to get along. I gave all the right answers, in the right tone, in the right cadence and the doctor decided I was fit to leave.

  I put on some donated street clothes and took a pre-paid cab home.

  When I got home everything was still. I sat on the couch, overwhelmed by the stimulation. It was an incredible clarity. I decided to go for a walk.

  On the walk, I could see cars turning, knowing they’d get into an accident in 3 days. I passed a woman who I knew would be a terrible mother with a man who would abandon her. I passed a man, and I knew he was a drunk that was destined to die from liver failure. I decided to go in a convenience store, I needed some water. The cashier was anxious. She believed me to be a threat for some reason. Despite her outwardly calm demeanor, she was incredibly tense. It unnerved me. But I knew why she was tense. That kind of insight was equally unnerving. The fa?ade was gone and it was deeply disturbing. Being around someone not outwardly hostile but inwardly incredibly dark. I wondered if this was a curse.

  The only thing I didn’t have absolute sight over was me, my future. It was as if the order I’ve seen herding everyone into an inevitable outcome, I was exempt. It was as calming as it was ominous.

  I drank my water on a bench by a lake, watching people going about their day. Seeing all the disturbing people think and feel. Think and feel about me, think and feel about each other, and most demoralizing, how they thought about themselves. I went to leave and saw a man who was going to mug me with a knife. I started walking the trail home. He was close. He was going to make his move in 25 feet.

  My heart rate exploded then time stopped around me. I saw birds suspended in the air, ripples on the lake stood still. My intention illustrated the cause and effect of each of my actions. Phantom trails emanating from everything outlining the chain of events. It was exhilarating. There was absolute order to everything, and I could see all of it with absolute clarity.

  I looked back the man who would mug me in seconds. I saw his life. I He's done this before. Many times. Many lives were affected by his actions. I saw every link in the chain of his choices. I could see what he would in the future. I didn't see value in his existence. I could have done any number of things to avoid confrontation. Deep in my heart, I didn’t want to. I wanted what happened.

  I stopped on the path and turned around. The hooded man walked up to me with a knife drawn, a protrusion in the waistband that was a fake handgun.

  "Give me everything you have," he barked.

  His hand twitched. His heart hammered. He thought he was in control.

  I remained silent. Studied him. I knew his heart rate; I knew his headspace. He was nervous. I won’t say he wanted to kill me at that moment, but I’ll say he is a man with exceptionally low impulse control.

  “I will kill you, give me your stuff. Don’t be a hero.” He snapped again.

  I remained silent.

  He hesitated for a moment, gauging me. I knew the exact moment he decided whatever I had was worth more than my life. A haul of a $10 bill, and a half empty water bottle.

  In one quick motion he thrust his knife to center left. I stood out, facing perpendicular to him, the extended arm in front of my stomach. He was rattled.

  He pulled back and lunged again — I saw it all before it happened. I could see primal fear creeping into his mind. The doubt he was experiencing was throwing him off. With a fluid motion I grabbed his elbow and the bottom of his wrist and positioned the blade in his hand to be poking under his chin. He could see what was going to happen. The fear he felt, seeing his death without acceptance. I saw as the tip of the 8-inch knife pierced the soft underside of his jaw and knew exactly when it breached the floor of his mouth and skewered his tongue against the roof of his mouth.

  He gurgled. Too stunned to make sound. He was in agony, couldn’t comprehend his situation; the outside world was shut out from his mind.

  I stood and watched for 4 minutes as he writhed on the ground bleeding out. I knew at 5 minutes someone would be through here and it would inconvenience me. I looked at my work one last time. It was the first time in my life that I didn’t feel powerless.

  It was messy. Brutal.

  But for once -- it was mine.