Straylow
Superflat Killing Machine
conflicted enforcer of the Unitary Combine
hero and villain of twenty-seven novels of the N.E.O.C. Expanded Universe
Contemplate this empty suit of armor taking up too much space in my home office:
Straylow’s official battle gear
complete with articulated display stand and an engraved certificate of authenticity
evokes the antihero in full: mirrored, opaque, cyclopean, obsessive
disintegrator rifle slung over one shoulder,
exiled from a vast body of myth by corporate-marketing department schemes
Well, comrades,
Straylow’s mine, now!
Behold Straylow
this is my Dad Body
a vehicle of fantasy
now I’m the twilight agent playing both sides against the middle
cosplay vengeance upon all the hours given up to building the network,
paying the mortgage,
vaping medicinals to damp down the anxiety, stress, back pain,
having to hide my medicinal use from mom, when she and dad are staying over
awkward discussions with Katie about how we explain the medicinals to Alyssa and Doug Jr.
'cause they savvy that Daddy's a stoner
and there's still enough ambient druggie shame in the culture
in the house that I pay for
of course I should be ashamed,
the medicinals,
the $5,000 and change I dropped at Excelsior Con to win the Straylow armor away from an aggressive bidder,
believe the shame,
the shame’s more real than any fantasy or reality
canon or no,
hey:
maybe
some higher corporate power
like
Nick
my boss at Network Analytico
will de-canonize my mother’s disapproval,
Katie’s, too.
Pray to your Boss for salvation.
A very old routine.
Stray has no place in the New Mythos.
I’m not supposed to believe in him.
But I do.
I’ll dwell in my own head-canon for all time.
Dream of a vigorous prostate exam
Wherein
I am besieged by assassins
As I blaze away with my Unitary Combine Custom Disintegrator
The doctor begins to vigorously work my prostate
"You've got to open yourself, Doug," the doctor urgently intones, "let me be your spotter."
Mind's eye gives me a glimpse of my prostate being massage-molded into a shape very like a Playstation One controller
Oh, yes
It's a two-hander
I'm stretched wide
Open to cosmic possibilities
Painful
But every blast's a headshot
Once I give myself over
To the Doctor Inside
Worth it.
The guy who sold the armor to me
made a decent supplemental income
wearing the armor at parties and cons
‘til Protean Obligate Film Holdings shut down the Extended Universe
mailed actual dead tree cease and desist letters
lockdown of the mythos
the fanscape laid to waste by legal decree
all in the name
of making piles and piles of cash
off a simplified soft reboot
complete with a new Expanded Universe displacing the original EU
adieu antiheroes
later for shades-of-gray
some shareholder putz said his brat didn't understand why Straylow had to nuke the planet in order to save it
Comes a vision
I'm navigating the twisty, cyberpunky corridors of the third iteration of the Straylow first person shooter sub-franchise, when I catch a glittering glimpse of a figure racing around a corner-
I'm zooming, now, enemies autodestructing, giving up the bit as I abandon the vanilla game for godmode urgency
Catching up
I see I've been chasing myself-a doppelganged Straylow, like holy shit-
He's filling my vision
Hand outstretched
That asshole pain throbs bright and clear, red lines shooting through my helmet heads-up display,
Usually the visual signifier of in-game damage to hit points
But now the game groks my hemorrhoids
Doppel-Stray makes a plucking gesture with his fingers
My asshole throbs in time to the pluck-panto
Sure I sit too much
Now my hero's looking out for me,
I guess
Scared Straight For Hemorrhoids
Gotta get myself to a gym
Or Stray shall telekinetically pluck that swollen vein
Yikes
But also
Thanks.
Now I wear the armor in defiance,
put on the Straylow self
Wear it to parties and cons and protests
Stray dreams intensify
Stray teaches me The Music of the Hemorrhoids
Which can raise the dead
I'm plucking my own swollen vein, now.
Yes, there are protests
Never protested a war
or our current authoritarian-in-chief
Resurrecting all the de-canonized fodder
I'll have the complete set
As long as I keep plucking that string
but now I’ll make my stand
for the proper shape of the mythos within my heart-canon-
Eerie is The Music of the Hemorrhoids
Blurs reality and dream
The living and the dead
Canon and excluded
Straylow,
the Twilight Operator,
And I,
His sacred Hemorrhoid Minstrel-
At home
At last
In the world of my own plucking.
-May 2014-October 2021
