Despite the opportunity being right in front of him, he did not take it this time around. He didn't use his temporary position to shorten his shift once more. He didn't want to do it because he wanted to delay this for as long as possible. To mentally prepare himself for it. But there was an additional reason for the delay. Squidward had taken his sweet time coming here. He didn't want anyone bothering him when he came to do this. He didn't want to be seen here, let alone be caught up in a conversation with some mourning moron wishing to talk about what a great person his rival was.
This was the kind of thing that needed to be done in private, a private conversation between two life-long associates. Two life-long opponents. Maybe he shouldn't have been here. After all, you only came here if you wanted to have a tearful goodbye with a deceased friend or loved one, or to take potshots at them now that they could no longer oppose you. But Squidward didn't mean to do either of those things. He didn't bother stopping to buy any flowers, he walked past the flower shop without a single glance. He didn't come to pay his respects to anyone.
That's why he kept having second thoughts, kept asking himself why he was doing it. He had no obligation to do it, but something inside of him compelled him to do it. Grabbing a trench coat and tucking his tentacles into the pockets, he strolled through town as the sun was setting, taking his time getting to Bikini Bottom cemetery. To his relief, there weren't many people left there, especially not where he was heading. The place was rather serene, and a bit eerie, fitting for a cemetery. It was so quiet, Squidward heard nothing but his own suction cup noises as he kept walking, besides the occasional crowing black clam that flew by.
As he walked through the graveyard, he took the occasional glance at the graves of people he knew, or more accurately, was just aware of via association, usually with Spongebob. There was Mermaid Man, along with Barnacle Boy, fittingly buried right next to his old partner. Their tombstones were already withered from age and looked unkept; cracking, with algae growing on them and the writing on them was growing faint.
Only now did Squidward really get a sense of how much time had passed since the old superhero duo had still been walking among them. He saw some other familiar names along the way. Betsy Krabs, Marion Squarepants, people he might have seen but couldn't recall ever having a conversation with, and others he had only heard about, like Blue Squarepants.
Squidward saw the undertaker, some creepy anglerfish dressed in raggedy Victorian clothes including a top hat, placing a tiny tombstone in the dirt dedicated to Sheldon J. Plankton. He guessed Karen told them about her husband's passing? But there was no casket, as there was no body to be buried. Old Plankton wound up being cremated and had his ashes spread across the ocean, if entirely by accident. Squidward tried to not think much about the horrendous sight.
But he wasn't here for any of these people. It didn't require much searching to find what he was looking for. His old classmate's tombstone towered over every other one in the area, you couldn't miss it. Undoubtably, Squilliam would have been pleased with his final resting place. Squidward stopped in front of it. The structure dwarfed even him. For a while, he just stood there, watching it with an impassive expression.
"Really now, Otto?" he snarked calmly. "Your 35th birthday? Three years ago, it was your 36th birthday? All that success, and yet you couldn't kill your ego enough to admit about your real age? Did you really have such as way with words or are the nimrods that adored you that dense that they failed to notice that you've been around making a name for yourself since the 70s?"
Of course, he received no response. No smug retort about how you could be anything you wanted to be as long as you had money and sway. Squidward just sighed and shook his head.
"If you were expecting me to dance on your grave or something, sorry to disappoint." He shrugged. "But I'm not giving you that satisfaction. That would just give you the last laugh, and that's not going to happen. You played me like a fiddle all my life and this is my last opportunity to show you that I have learned."
The tombstone was still deathly silent, as was to be expected. Squidward thought about if he had finally snapped, considering he was talking to a dead person, but if all those schmucks could do it with their departed loved ones, he sure as heck was allowed to do it with his old enemy without being judged.
"So why am I here, you may ask?" He didn't even humor him with the notion that he was here to pay his respects. He knew Squilliam was savvier than that. "To be frank, I don't really know either. I just felt the need to come and have one last chat."
His shifted awkwardly, but his expression remained stone cold. "I can't believe it's over? It kinda felt like we were meant to do this forever, or I at least expected you to outlive me. I gotta admit, I find it a tad embarrassing that it took me two days to realize you were gone, but you know that I'm a busy octopus, right? Getting entangled with Spongebob's insane escapades and all."
"I suppose I expected this feud of ours to end on some kind of grand note. I didn't expect you to go out on a whimper, just a heart attack, and I wasn't even there catering to witness your demise. I'm not bitter about it…okay maybe I am a little, but not like that would have made a difference. We both know you won this feud. You made that clear three years ago, I guess that was our big "final battle", if you want to call it that? Honestly, I don't think our relationship could even be called a "feud"? More like just me making an idiot out of myself and you being there to laugh at it."
"Who knows?" he shrugged his shoulders again. "If I had been more of a toadie in high school and kissed your butt like everyone else, maybe things would have been different? Maybe I could have been your personal assistant and yes-man? Following you around, and feeding off the crumbs left in your wake? Given that you were Squilliam Fancyson III, scavenging your leftovers would have surely put me far above the average citizen of Bikini Bottom? Maybe you would have been gracious enough to bequive some of your money to me in your final will, assuming you were even forward-thinking enough to have made one?"
"I still remember you making such an offer to me in college, just so you could assert your superiority and put me in my place. But I don't regret not taking the offer, not one bit. At least this way, I can say that I retained some of my dignity. But I do regret something and I think you deserve to know it."
Squidward paused. It had been hard enough to spit out all the things he had said, but now he really needed to swallow his pride. Taking in a deep breath, he braced himself.
"I regret letting all your teasing and baiting get to me. I regret making a fool out of myself and causing myself unimaginable grief just to show you up. It was childish, petty, short-sighted and a fool's errand, but I was too arrogant to admit it. Too arrogant to admit that the people of Bikini Bottom had spoken a long time ago. Squilliam was a star, Squidward was not, and I couldn't force any of them to change their tune. I realize that now."
"Yes, you heard right. I hope you're satisfied. I know a lot of my grief was on me. I brought it on myself by not knowing when to quit. Funny, right? You think a cynic like me would be one of the first people to call it quits? But I guess not. I could have avoided a lot of it, the five-star restaurant charade, or getting arrested for impersonating you. I could have avoided that if I had just been an adult and turned my back on you."
Squidward glanced at the ground and sighed. "But I couldn't do it. I was too consumed by envy. Of course I was envious of you. Not like you didn't know it. As you said? You succeeded at everything I ever dreamed about. You were the guy who was living my dream. And like a high school queen bee, you had to rub it in my face at every chance, and like a high school dork, I had to take the bait and get trigged every single time. Guess neither of us really moved past our high school mentality for all these years, huh?"
"And now look at me?" he shrugged. "What has all of that brought me? Nothing. I just wasted my time and caused myself pain, and in the end, it was all for naught. It's amazing what pride and envy can do to a person. Galvanizing them from the inside until they are nothing but a hollow shell, brewing in self-pity and regretting not having made better choices while they still could. Gutted, broken, despondent, numb to everything, dead on the inside."
"But I guess all classic tragedies follow that pattern? The hero is the architect of their own demise through some tragic character flaw, the bad guy is more or less just there to get the ball rolling."
Squidward looked back at the tombstone. "So what now? You're gone and I'm still here? It feels strange not having you around anymore. For worse and worse, you were a constant in my life, something I had grown accustomed to. Who knows how much time I have left, but it will be weird spending it without you there to tease me and make even more self-conscious about my lack of success."
Squidward let out a small, tired chuckle. "Listen to me? The way I'm phrasing it, it almost sounds like I miss you? I don't. I hated your guts and I still do. I just regret never taking the chance to walk away from you and not give you the satisfaction of getting to me for the umpteenth time. Well, as I alluded to oh-so subtly before…" he snaked "…you won this feud."
Squidward's eyes narrowed, his expression turned serious. "Yes, you are the victor and I'm here to admit it. But I'm also here to show you that I am the bigger man. I didn't come here to vent out my frustrations and pin the blame on you for all my misery. I came here to show you that I can admit to my own faults, even if took me four decades to do so. I know that's something you never could have done in life. It's the one thing I can say I did better than you."
He folded his arms. "I'm sure such frivolous concepts such as accountability don't mean anything to you, but they do to other people I know. People who are also living their dream and don't feel the need to be smug about it or put others down for failing to do the same. I'm not just talking about Sandy but also Sp….spp…sppp…"
He braced himself. Come on, you could do it. "Spongebob. Yes…even him. He's a delusional moron, no doubts about that, and by all accounts, he ain't no success. But he is a success in his own eyes, being the town's best fry cook and he never felt the need to be a jerk about it. And that's something, considering he is working with a guy who couldn't fry patties to save his life and who somehow made a fried boot once trying to do Spongebob's job."
He paused once more. He was running out of things to say to Squilliam but there was one last thing the latter had to know. "Who knows? Maybe I'm just as delusional as the yellow cretin. Maybe all this is just some coping mechanism I have imposed on myself to shield my feeble psyche from the agonizing reality that my most-hated foe died a success while I have squandered my life and achieved zilch, and I will surely die like as I have lived, as a lowly nobody. Maybe that's the case, but you know what?"
"To Davy Jones's locker with that! I will try to enjoy what little time I have left regardless. I won't let you haunt me beyond the grave and make me miserable in my final years. Who knows how much time I have left and I sure as heck won't waste another second being bitter and wallowing in self-pity, least of all thinking about and being envious of you. Yes, knowing me, that ain't gonna be no walk in the park, but I will try my best to enjoy the life I have. I have made many mistakes and I'm not going to continue making more. Contrary to popular belief, you can still teach an old octopus new tricks."
Realizing he was getting a bit emotional, Squidward panted and tried to catch his breath. It wasn't a huge outburst but he took his time collecting himself. He had done it, he had confronted Squilliam and told him everything that had been gnawing at him these last 24 hours. Squidward wasn't sure if he had taken a huge weight off himself, only time would tell, but he felt like he had done what needed to be done.
He realized now why the latter's death made him feel so hollow. Because their feud had ultimately led to nothing. Squilliam remained Squilliam, a successful millionaire, and Squidward remained Squidward, a penniless cashier. Nothing was achieved through their conflict, only lots of grief for Squidward. And now he had admitted it. Squidward wasn't any more successful from that, but felt just a smidge wiser and like had finally achieved something. Learn from his mistakes and move on.
He saw that the sun had set and it was getting dark. In the distance, he could hear incoming thunder. Exhaling, Squidward took one final glance at his old rival's final resting place.
"Goodbye, Squilliam." He nodded impassively and turned around, having no intention of returning here again. Tucking his tentacles back into his pockets, he made his way back home, content with having buried the hatchet, as well as his life-long rivalry with Squilliam here, at the Bikini Bottom cemetery. With or without Squillaim, his life would go on.
Well, if there's one message you can take away from this, it's the ye ol' "Revenge, the most meaningless of causes" lesson. If you spend your entire life hating and envying someone, it will ultimately leave you feeling empty and hollow. Even hearing that the person you despised kicked the bucket will be of little comfort to you if your own life is still the same, unfulfilled, empty and filled regrets, and you look back, thinking about how you could have spent your time in far more productive ways than chasing a stubborn pipe dream and engaging in a very one-sided and heavily rigged feud.
The other message you can take away from this is "Know when to quit." There's a difference between iron-willed determination and stubborn denial. If you don't call it quits after being met with failure some two dozen times or so, it's safe to say the former had morphed into the latter. I think most would agree that this transition happened to Squidward not long after the first movie. He really should have taken the memo, but status quo is God, and we couldn't have Squidward change or grow as a character. Squidward wouldn't be Squidward if he ate humble pie, but watching him being put through the wringer for 20 years, long after the show itself had peaked, ceased being funny or relatable a while ago and just became depressing after a point.
I'm not saying Squidward himself is a bad person or that deserved what he got, I'm saying he's human (or anthro-animal?) and he made the same kind of mistakes real people who are blinded by their own hubris and justifiable frustration with life would make. And like with real people, it ultimately left him broken and hollow, regretting his life choices.
Yes, even with the humor sprinkled throughout, this was not an uplifting story by any stretch of the word, but neither is the real-life story of Spongebob Squarepants as a show, which started out as a simple cartoon trying to make people laugh with witty comedy, but then turned into a sad, sad embodiment of corporate greed, and now, with Stephen Hillenburg's premature passing and Nickelodeon forcing the stupidest spin-offs imaginable into production, Spongebob is in as sorry of a state as it has ever been.