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A brave hero watches the city from the top of a billboard!

He has no idea how he got there, and he has no idea how to come down.

Just another night in the daily routine of Surface Land's favorite hero.

"Patrick Man!" he screamed into the night.

Without realizing it, the hero awakens three people with his thunderous voice.

"Patchy, what was that?" asked a parrot from his small bed on the book shelf.

"Don't worry Potty, it's just Patrick stuck in the billboard again." Patchy said to the parrot and yawned. "I'll call the firemen to get him down first thing tomorrow morning. Now, let's got back sleep."

"That works for me."

In a restaurant nearby, a drowsy, hallucinating man awakens.

"Woah, I'm feeling…great. But why's the roof screaming at me?"

"Charleston."

"Whoah! Who said that?"

"Me. Look behind you."

"Okay, that's creepy, but I'll do it anyway." Charleston turned around, but nobody was there. "Are you a ghost?"

"No. Come closer." Said the voice, identical to his. "Closer. Yes, that's it. A little bit more. Not so close, hey—HEY STOP! OUCH!"

Charleston felt a crunching feeling under his foot. He looked at his shoe's sole and found a small green stain. "Ew, I really need to clean this place. I think the cockroaches are becoming radioactive."

"I'm not a cockroach, you big idiot!" The green figure recovered his original form and jumped into Charleston's hands. Then, with a solemn voice, the small creature asked him "Charleston, have you forgotten me?"

"No, how could I?" Charleston said. "You're on my phone's screensaver. You're the sea creature Frenchy told me about, you're my counterpart. You're…Plankton."

"The one and only!" the creature on his hands laughed evilly. After he was done, he looked at his surroundings with increasing disgust, "geez, this place is almost as abysmal as the Chum Bucket."

"What?"

"Nothing, I just said that—that this place is almost as good as my own restaurant."

"You didn't say that. I may only have one eye, but I still can hear perfectly well." Charleston said, having the sudden need to squeeze the little critter for his impertinence, "do you know what I mean?"

The creature looked at him. "Actually, I do know what you mean."

"Really?" Charleston hugged Plankton against his chest, almost crushing him in the process. "Finally, someone that understands! I've been so lonely lately!"

"Dammit, stop that." Plankton pushed himself away from Charleston and jumped to slap him in the face. "You're me, so stop acting like a crybaby. Have some dignity!"

"You're right." Charleston blew his nose with a napkin and calmed down instantly. "Sorry about that."

"Yeah well, I don't forgive you." Plankton jumped from Charleston's hands to his desk and showed him his reflection in a handmirror. "I mean, look at you! You look pathetic!"

"Shut up, you small bean." Charleston said, grabbing the mirror and throwing out the window. "You don't know what I've been through these days."

"Let me guess, marital issues?"

"Are you a phsychic?!"

"No, I'm you."

"Oh, right…But, what would you know about these kind of problems anyway? You're just a single cell organism, most likely created by Frenchy's imagination after he smokes too much kelp."

"I'm very real. I'm so real that I'm married to a computer." Plankton shrugged. "Do you think it's easy being married to a piece of hardware?

"Do you think it's easy being in a long-distance marriage?" Charleston said.

"As a matter of fact, I do."

"Well, it isn't! Especially not when you and your wife get drunk ,and you both agree to meet each other just because in that moment it felt like a great idea. But it wasn't! It was stupid! Stupid like…like your antenna!"

"What do my antenna have to do with anything? Leave them out of this, you jerk!" Plankton grabbed his antenna and kissed them. "Don't listen to the big bad guy."

"I'm sorry, I just—" Charleston sighed and sat down on the floor. "We messed up. I tried to get better, but the only thing I could was drinking hallucinating milkshakes. And look at me now, talking to my hallucinated counterpart and throwing my stuff out of the window like a maniac. Karen will run away the moment she sees me, I'm sure…"

Charleston hugged his knees and hid his face on his forearms. A moment later, he felt he light weight of Plankton after he jumped on his head.

"That's not true." Plankton told him after giving him a few pats as if Charleston was a dog. "She'll run away after she sees how much of a loser you are. That's different."

"You want me to flush you down the toilet?" Charleston warned him with a serious tone.

"You're only mad because it's true." Plankton said, jumping to Charleston's knee. "And I should know. I'm you, remember?"

"Are you me as in my inner self or as in my counterpart?"

"Both."

"Then boy, am I an annoying little piece of—"

"Language!" Plankton scolded him. With a mellower voice, he said, "look, I think you're overcomplicating things. You don't know for sure your Karen will leave you. Who knows? Maybe you two will end up living together, just like me and my Karen!"

"You think so?" Charleston asked with a glimpse of hope. "And are you two happy together?"

"Of course we are. We have our problems, but it's nothing too bad. We only fight every day, and she kicks me out at least twice a month, and I may have tried to replace her with a newer model once. I also kind of cheated on her, only a little bit, with Mr. Krabs's mother, and…wow, that sounded a lot better in my mind."

"Cheat…on Karen?" the sole idea horrified Charleston, and it got worse when he imagined the rest, "with Slabs' mother? Oh god, that mental image will haunt me forever. Thanks a lot, Plankton. I feel a lot better now! You make a great other."

"You're welcome."

"Do you sea creatures understand the meaning of sarcasm?" Charleston grunted at him. Then, without the energy to fulfill his threat of flushing Plankton down the toilet, he rested his chin on his other knee and looked at the small organism. "Whatever, just get out of here, you little pest."

"I can't." Plankton jumped to his shoulder and touched Charleston's forehead. "I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere, my dear me."

"Are you acting all mysterious because you have run out of smart things to say?" said an unimpressed Charleston. He closed his eye. "Anyway, just shut up. I'm getting really tired now…"

"I know why you're acting like this." Plankton told him. "And all I have to say is that you're wrong."

Charleston opened his eye again, strangely intrigued by his words. "What are you talking about?"

"So what if Karen leaves you?" Plankton smiled at him. "It's not going to be the end of the world, is it?"

"It will be the end of my long-distance marriage, though…"

"So?"

"What do you mean by 'so'?" Charleston grabbed Plankton with his two hands and stood up, "That's the last thing I want to happen!"

"Again…so?" Plankton's only eye brimmed with conviction. "So what if the worst happens? So what if your marriage ends? So what if she hates you? Even without her, you still have much more in your life, Charleston!"

Charleston looked at his empty restaurant. "Oh really?"

"Yes."

"Like what?"

"I don't know…how about the secret sauce recipe?" Plankton said with a sinister grin. "You don't need Karen to get it, do you? Just like you don't need her to keep this restaurant going, and just like you didn't need her in your life before you met her."

"But—"

"But nothing! Stop worrying about her for a second and wake up, okay? You don't need her to keep going with your life. If she leaves you, then good riddance! Who knows, maybe it's best for the both of you if that's what happens. Think about it, you'll miss each other at first, but time heals everything. You'll get over her, just as she'll get over you…I even dare to say she'll beat you to that! Eventually, you'll both find something better, maybe even someone better. Don't you think she deserves someone better, Charleston?"

Charleston loosened his grip on Plankton and scooped him on his hands. Maybe there was wisdom in what he said. Plankton laughed and then pointed back at the desk, directly at Charleston's headphones.

Almost in a trance, Charleston picked them up. He caressed them and tried to put them on, but his hands were frozen.

"You know what you must do, don't you?" Plankton, now only a voice, whispered in his ear.

Charleston looked at his broken window. The headphones made cracking sounds under his stiffened fingers.

"Go ahead." Plankton said before he vanished. "You know as well as I do that this for the best. And I am you, just like you are me."

Meanwhile, in a city far away, a drunken woman stared at the window of her apartment, unaware that her long-distance husband is doing the same thing.

In the sky, the sun was starting to come out.

"Do it, Karen." The computer with her voice said to her. "It'll make you feel better."

"Are you sure?"

"It's only logical. You've been so worried about Charleston not liking you even when you always knew what the answer to that question was."

"You mean…'no'?"

"Precisely. Stop lying to yourself and just accept the facts. You're good at doing that."

Karen looked at the imagined computer. She couldn't argue with her.

"Trust me, the sooner you accept it, the sooner you'll be able to relax. It will be like the relief you feel after finally confessing a long-lasting lie."

"But, what about taking a chance? Will I not regret this forever?" Karen clinged to the headphones with all her strength as the fading memory of the old man crossed her mind.

"I don't know, I'm a computer. I make calculus, not prophecies, but something tells me you won't." The computer said.

"And what is that something you talk about, if I may ask?" Said Karen, very unconvinced.

"Mostly, it's the kelp beer." The computer replied. He came so close to Karen that her screen almost touched her face, "will you dare to question the kelp beer, Karen?"

Karen opened her moth in horror. "Never! One does not question the kelp beer! One does not question the kelp beer!"

She kept on singing the beer's jingle as she launched the headphones through the opened window as if she was a pitch launching the winning ball of a game. A few seconds later, a man in the streets screamed "My leg!", but Karen didn't care.

Back at the Crumb Basket, Charleston did the same. He danced in victory after his pointless deed, unaware that Patrick Man watched the headphones coming out of the restaurant and confused them with a fleeing thief.

He would have gone after him, if he only knew how to get down the billboard.

"I did it!" Karen and Charleston cheered in unison. "I'm free…We are free! Free! Fre—"

They passed out at the same time, an incident that, for some reason, coincided with the rude awakening of a plankton under the sea.

"What in Neptune's name was that? Karen?"

"Isn't it a bit early for you to interrupt my sleep mode, Plankton?"

"Did you, by any chance, have a dream about connecting cosmically with a weird-looking, headphones-wearing fish from a distant land?" he asked, still disturbed.

"Now that you mention it…No, I didn't." Karen said after making a beeping sound. Softly, she whispered, "Gosh, I have to defragment my hard drive ASAP."

"Oh. Neither did I" Plankton said, decided to go back to sleep. Softly, he muttered, "Man, I really have to stop watching those horror movies before going to sleep…"

JimBob whistled happily as he walked down the street. It was just another beautiful morning in his dear town. He stopped near a group of firemen and policemen.

"Good morning!" he said to them. "How are you doing today, brave men of the law?"

"Hello JimBob!" One of the two officers said, "you know, just helping an idiot coming down the billboard. Nothing out of usual. This is the third time this week, if he keeps this up, I'll have him locked up for a few days."

"Oh, I'm sure he means well." JimBob said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Well, I have to go. Those Slabby Patties won't cook themselves."

Just before JimBob could continue with his cheery walking, a screaming, hysteric man appeared out of nowhere. He was frantically looking for something everywhere possible.

Under the cars, inside the trash bins, amidst the bushes, even under the officer's hats and the firemen's helmets.

"Hey you, Charleston!" One of the officers told him, "you better get out of here before I arrest you for impudence against the law!"

"Is that even a crime?" his partner whispered to him.

"I don't know, just play along!"

Charleston ignored them. Instead, he kept on looking for whatever he was searching for until his quest took him to look underneath JimBob's shoes.

"They're not here either!" Charleston said, punching the pavement with his fists. "They're not anywhere! Where are they?!"

"Charleston, what's wrong?" JimBob asked him with great concern.

"They are gone, JimBob. My dears are gone!" Charleston said. He cried for a bit before adding, "and to make things worse, I won't get any benefit from the protein milkshakes I drank. I threw them all up this morning, just like I threw my dears out the window! What kind of long-distance husband am I?"

"Did you just say, 'protein milkshakes'?" the officers asked. One of them was already preparing the handcuffs to take Charleston into one of his recurring visits to the local prison. "The illegal, hallucination inducing protein milkshakes?"

Charleston's face lost all its color. He managed to get up and run away before the officers had a chance to arrest him. As he ran along the street, his laments echoed across town. "My dears are lost! My dears are lost!"

"Charleston wait!" said JimBob, but he was only able to see how he disappeared into the distance.

"Shouldn't we go after him?" the officer with the handcuffs asked his partner.

"And miss the opportunity to meet that beautiful chick from the news in the Trusty Slab today?" the other answered with a smile, "not in a million years friend."

The two of them shared a high-five.

Meanwhile, JimBob kept staring down the street. His mind couldn't stop thinking about Charleston.

Did he really lose his headphones? Poor Charleston, he sure seemed devastated…

"Excuse me," someone pocked his shoulder and made him lose his train of thought. Jim Bob turned around and found Patrick being carried in the arms of a fireman, whose face clearly read 'I didn't waste many years in the academy training for this!' "Do you know this man?"

"Hello JimBob!" Said Patrick, dropping the persona of Patrick Man, like he did every morning just after the sun rose.

"Patrick!" JimBob exclaimed in surprise and happiness, "Don't worry officer, I'll take him from here."

"Good." The fireman said with a tired voice before dropping Patrick into JimBob's arms and making him collapse under Patrick's weight. "I'm out of here. Next time your pal here decides to play vigilante, make sure he stays out of high places, okay?"

In less than a minute, both the officers and the firemen were gone.

"Being a hero is hard, but it makes me happy." Patrick said as helped JimBob stand up, "it also makes me hungry. Let's go to the Trusty Slab, JimBob! Can it be your treat again? I'll make sure to pay you when I get my hero's payment tomorrow, someday…eventually."

"Of course," JimBob, trying to sound as merry as possible.

"What's wrong?" Patrick looked at his friend with a sad face, "is your underwear too tight?"

"No, my underwear is fine, Patrick, "JimBob said with a sad sigh, "it's just that…Charleston was here just a moment ago and he looked very upset. He said he lost his headphones."

"Nah," Patrick said while picking his nose, "he got robbed last night. I saw it with my own eyes! I tried to stop the thief, but this stupid billboard wouldn't let me go."

Patrick walked toward the post and began to punch it. "See what you caused, you foul villain?"

He continued to take his anger out on it until JimBob made him stop. The fry cook held Patrick's hands in his own, "Patrick, are you sure?"

"Yeah, the billboard is EVIL!"

"No, I mean about Charleston being robbed!"

Patrick thought for a second.

"Yes, "he said with so much convincement that even the officers would have believed him, "as sure as water is pink."

"I'm pretty sure water is clear, Patrick."

"Not in my bathtub."

"Anyway, that's not what's important," JimBob put his arm around Patrick's shoulders, "What really matters is catching that culprit and getting Charleston's headphones back! For him, losing those things is almost like losing his wife!"

"Charleston has a wife?"

"He may be an evil guy, but no couple deserves to be separated in such a horrible way. I won't let them share that fate!" JimBob heroically put a hand on his chest. "Once I'm done with work today, I'll join you tonight in your heroic crussade, Patrick! Meet me outside the Crumb Basket at ten o'clock. It's time for this fry cock to be a hero too."

Patrick smiled at his friend. "Do you mean…"

"Yes." JimBob changed his normal glasses for pair of sunglasses, "it's time for Jimmy Boy to come back! For Charleston, Karen, their long-distance marriage and their awaited reunion!"

"Yeah, let's do it for the fireman that saved me!" Patrick cheered together with his friend.

"Remember your mantra Manward, "said Manward as he passed next to them on his way to work, "if you don't look at them, they don't exist. If you don't look at them, they don't exist…"