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The Adventures of Roach Back: New Roach in the City!
It started about a year ago, I suppose...probably not to the day, but maybe. Who cares what day it is when nothing good happens? We were a normal family living in two story house: just my wife Liz, our daughter Emily, and me, Hugh Stuntz. We didn't have a white picket fence, but we were happy. Well, that's what I thought. I soon learned there could be some horrible things lying under the lush green carpet of happiness. Let me ask you this...who would you rather be stranded with on an island: the person who bullies you, treats you like crap, and does everything she can to show that she hates you...or the person who says nice things to you, tells you your a wonderful person, makes love to you passionately, but hates you for being who you are and won't admit it? Me? I'll choose the former any day. See, it turns out my wife thought I was going to someone I wasn't going to be. She assumed that someone who was a computer programmer would automatically be rich. "Computers are the future, Hugh!" she used to say. But apparently the path of gold isn't that predictable. After 10 years of marriage and still not able to afford the Porsche she always wanted, Liz traded up. I would like to say it was a sudden decision, but I realized some of Emily's cold behavior toward me wasn't a young girl getting closer to her mother and pulling away from her father, but the result of a mother's brainwashing, and that meant she had been planning ahead for a while. So, with my "loving" wife moving off to a more profitable life with some guy who made three times what I made, and taking my daughter with her believing that the reason she never got that horse was because I didn't love her, that all the money I should have been making was really going to a nonexistent mistress, I started to wonder...what really matters? When your family hates you, what still is important? Well, I soon lost my job because the few times I showed up to work and on time. I was drunk. Unfortunately, I hadn't considered the fact that everything happens in 3's. I hade lost my family, I had lost my job...I should have known it wasn't over. Emily was the most important person in my life, and still is even if she'll have nothing to do with me, and before Emily there was Liz...but before Liz there was my twin sister, Joyce. Joyce was a wonder. Completely fearless, she took on everything that even remotely made her think twice. "The only way to conquer fear is to face it, Hugh," she would say. So when she put on a cape and mask and said she was going to be the Spectacular Stuntwoman, well...it made sense. She even got herself a superhero husband, Andrew McCampbell, Sleepwalker. Andrew had the ability to make dreams come true, and nightmares...not literally, of course...except for Joyce. Her dream came true with Andrew, and she took her tough as nails fighting ability and joined Andrew as the duo, Sleepwalker and Stuntwoman, Then, the Rikti invaded. Sleepwalker and Stuntwoman rushed to Paragon City to fight against the Rikti. Many superheroes died in the fighting, including my sister and brother-in-law. When I learned about my sisters death in the newspaper, the bottom fell out. I don't really know what happened...but I know I immediately went to Drake Watering Hole, my favorite dive to drink in. 2 and a half months later...I awoke in Paragon City. I'm not sure what happened in those 2 and a half months. I have memories of several women I apparently had sexual encounters with, all of whom were called Liz. I have memories of talking and crying to many more women whom I apparently called Emily and Joyce. When you wake up one day in a dingy motel not remember several weeks of your life...well, that's a quick detox. But more curious was that I woke up with a roach in my face, my sister in my head, and a memory: My father, a veterinarian and dog breeder, was explaining why a puppy I had become attached to had to be sold; "It has a roach back, son. It's got an arched back." The image that came with that term was of a roach on its back, legs twitching helplessly in the air. So with my sister's spirit, and the image of how I wanted those who benefited from the Rikti invasion, on their backs legs twitching in the air...I became Roach Back. |
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What does a person do when
his life collapses around him? Does he collapse in on himself, much like his
world? Full of confusion and pain and and sorrow, or does he change,
metamorphosize, adapt to his new environment...his new life?
