Squidward Tentacles is a liar. Squidward Tentacles is a crony. He is a pity to himself and others, but most of all, he is a loner. What connects him to this world? What makes him believe in his own significance? Perhaps it is his destiny, to suffer an ignominious life under the sea, but it was truly his hardships, the sequential discouragements and embarrassments, that drove him to his uninspiring place as a cashier. When life gave him lemons, he did the only sane thing a man could do in that situation and gave in to the jeering of the surrounding crowd of parents, siblings, and peers by squeezing them into his eyes. In such a state with searing, bulbous eyes, can you really blame our mollusk- our, dare I say it, friend- for his self-preserving narcissism?
One particular day in Bikini Bottom, Squidward was coolly cycling to his shift at the Krusty Krab, enjoying a rare moment of tranquility, when the gust of garbage-stench was carried to his dangling nose from the dumpster outside the fast-food restaurant.
"Nothing like the scent of boiling fat and grease to get you energized in the morning, huh?" Squidward spoke sarcastically to himself.
He had to be his own audience sometimes. Who else would find the cleverness in him? Who else would want to be around such a cynical asshole? As Squidward stepped off his bike and removed his helmet, he saw movement in the edge of his vision.
"Oh look. It's the ever-talented Mr. Squidward Tentacles," came the familiarly obnoxious nasal-tone.
"Squilliam Fancyson!" said Squidward.
"I see you're still without a boatmobile or a career or anything else. Didn't you say something back in school? What was it? 'I'm going to be famous when I'm older so I don't have to worry about practical skills.'"
Squilliam, his unibrow, and the parasitic group of followers always around him were all laughing relentlessly.
"At least I performed at the Bubble Bowl, something you never could have achieved."
"Organized sports are such a grossly capitalist affair in my opinion. I didn't really want to perform at that little gladiator fight anyway."
"Didn't you just insult me for being poor?"
"I'll let you keep performing for shirtless men, since it's clearly something you can't stop thinking about. When was that? Fifteen years ago?"
"Like you're one to talk, Squilliam. What was the last gig you booked, Hillary Clinton's victory party?"
Squidward started honking with laughter, trying to rival Squilliam's fan-club in volume.
"Recently I've been performing exclusively for a private club. It's frequented only by the wealthiest people in the sea. In fact, I've gotten so rich performing for this little cabal that I've just bought a new mansion. I think you'll like the design and the location."
The beep of a crane was followed by a crash of dust as two massive Easter Island heads were dropped into place just down the street from the Krusty Krab.
"What? You're going to live by the Krusty Krab?"
"This neighborhood is quickly becoming the trendiest in Bikini Bottom. Something about the stench of grease and working class people sparks my creativity. And I can't deny, it's also nice to know how miserable it makes you."
Squilliam honked a refrain then disappeared into his mansion with his entourage.
For Squidward, it was nine hours of cleaning up after the most disgusting bottom feeders in the seven seas and taking order after order. Just when he was about to relax that afternoon and read a magazine, there was a massive explosion from the kitchen.
"Spongebob! What the heck are you doing in there?"
"Right now? I'm just standing here."
Squidward peeped through the order window to see Spongebob standing motionless with black soot covering his whole body.
"No, you idiot. What did you do to cause that explosion?"
"Nothing. I was just grilling the patties like normal, then I smelled something strange, then KABOOM!"
The sound of the sponge's voice was enough to make Squidward grit his teeth.
"Fire on deck, boys! Seal the magazine! Run out the hoses!"
Mr. Krabs came dashing out of his office, his stubby legs a blur beneath him.
"What's goin' on here, laddies?"
"Uh, there appears to have been a gas explosion."
"Well the ship must keep a-running, Squidward. You two clean up this mess, and I'll be in my office… uh… management consulting."
Squidward had had more than enough of life by the end of his shift. As he stepped into his home that night, he ached in his back and feet, but he also felt a dimness about him. As if a part of himself had been lost by the knowledge of Squilliam's success. Surely what he had was enough already. He had hardly any want of anything, because he had always remained frugal and single, no children or romance to drain his finances and distract from his artistic passion. Yet now he realized there was nothing within him all along, that the absence of others around him made even his best work hollow and useless. The mere existence of Squilliam was an insult to the idea that Squidward Tentacles was important.
The pricelessly beautiful architecture of the Easter Island head also gave it an ever present coldness. Squidward resolved to find out which nefarious person, and he believed with certainty it was only one, was behind his most recent miseries in life.
"Come on, Squidward. Focus," he said to himself. "There's something strange going on here, and if you act like you have nothing to lose, you have everything to gain."
Squidward thought deeply about the strange events of that day, plotting into the night what he was to do. The next day, Squidward felt the butterflies of nervousness as he awoke, and they quickly faded into a deep dread of the unknown, the unsubtle. Squidward looked at all his paintings, and found they brought him no happiness. So he burned them all in his fireplace. He played a tune on his clarinet, but it felt bittersweet, to the point of bringing him to tears. His clarinet, its familiar drone, was once a small light in a dark world, but it was now like an old friend from simpler times, unable to assist him now in his darkest moment after such estrangement.
When Squidward saw Squilliam's mansion on his way to work, he felt a pit in his stomach, but it was fleeting. A rejoicing anger, a selfless vengeance, brewed in Squidward's heart.
"Hey Squidward!" Squilliam shouted from the top of a water slide. "Why don't you join us at my pool? Oh wait, you have to work at the Krusty Krab today, don't you? Too bad."
As Squilliam laughed above him, Squidward felt no frustration, no urge to pluck off Squilliam's eyes. For the first time Squidward was calm, recognizing the meaningless of being emotionally defensive.
"Say Squilliam, what did you say that exclusive club you perform for is called?"
"Why, do you think that you could get in? Ha ha ha ha."
"No, I'm… putting together a travel guide."
"Oh, well it's called the AquaDuct if you really must know."
Inside the Krusty Krab, things were already looking insufferable for the day.
"Three hundred dollers! This is piracy, I tell ye!" Mr. Krabs was shouting at a bass in a jumpsuit.
"Look you can take up your complaints with the Bikini Bottom Gas Company, but I have another site to report to," he said.
"Well then scram, scurvy dog! We don't need ya!"
Mr. Krabs chased the man out of the restaurant with his claws aflare.
"What's wrong, Mr. Krabs?" Spongebob asked.
"There's something afoot in Bikini Bottom, laddie. First, there's a gas explosion, then I'm having to pay a three hundred doller fee for damage caused by the gas utility."
"What's a utility?"
"Har har har har. Spongelad, utilities are the greatest businesses in the world."
"Even better than the Krusty Krab?"
"Oh, even better, my boy. Not even all the treasures of Cozumel can compare to the mountains of money you can make as a utility."
"They must sell something great! Like hats that can open doors for you! Or TV that watches you!"
"No, my boy. Utilities are a natural monopoly. They own all the wires and pipes going into every house and building in Bikini Bottom, and they own the generators that make them run. Since nobody can get their utilities anywhere else, they can sit comfortably and count their money."
Mr. Krabs noticed Squidward by the doorway and lost his jubilance in an instant like he was still running a ship in the Navy.
"Squiiiidwaaard! You're late, and not looking particularly excited for a day of rewarding labor."
"Mr. Krabs, if you only knew how excited I really am. If you only knew."
After work, Squidward hopped on his bike and peddled furiously back home. Inside the walls of the Easter Island head, he unravelled. He stripped off his clothes, became like a beast. He chewed coral raw, but it did not soothe his soul. He could make himself as base of a sea creature as possible, and he would still be trapped within his own head. As he tore through the spiderwebbed remnants of all the years he has lived here, towers of meaningless art magazines and scribblings that never stopped being only imagination, he began to reckon with how empty it is. Nobody has shared in his artistic triumphs and glories, no one has seen the evolution of his hidden and shunned creations. And like all things, they were all ash and dust in the end.
And that sponge. That curse from Neptune that has taken up so much of his time; nearly every day he has caused grief to an honest octopus. What else is a mollusk to do in such a heartless world while being such an intelligent animal? Squidward could metamorphize in an instant, communicate in invisible frequencies, even predict World Cup victories that pretentious humans find so complex and unpredictable, yet he must suffer as all life, fighting for his life in an unfair world and dying in the end. He was trapped in an atoll where he was always less than someone else. Less relaxed than the fat barbarian next door, less friendly than the stupid sponge.
But most of all he was less than Squilliam. In school Squilliam knew he reminded Squidward of his weakness, so he made sure to rub it in whenever he achieved something. In his world, there was never any crack in his confidence facade. He never had to face the humbling reality that makes an octopus realize how insignificant we are, how we are in the general indistinguishable from one another. For this Squilliam deserved to be punished.
Squidward found his way to a large canvas in the corner of the attic. Two elder octopii held hands with their large turquoise noses dangling perfectly parallel. It was his mother and father who set him up for torment and failure. They had lavished praise on Squilliam, declared him a superior son to his parents. No word of encouragement ever came from their apathetic lips. In their world, Squidward was a main character, but he was the villain.
He started to hear Spongebob and Patrick's voices in his head. They were chanting the same refrain over and over.
"Squid's got genes! Squid's got genes! Squid's got genes! Squid's got genes!"
Squidward could tell now, as he prepared to destroy it all, that it was not the sponge or the starfish's fault that they were annoying creatures. Truthfully, they had admired Squidward, given him the adoration he craved. Nobody else was as impressed by Squidward as Spongebob and Patrick, not even Squidward himself. They believed he had to be special because of his genes, but what good had those genes ever done?
"Sorry Mr. and Mrs. Tentacles, your son died today."
Squidward lit a match and set the painting ablaze. He slowly gathered his necessary things and walked out the door as the house was consumed in an inferno. Squidward got back on his bike and peddled furiously down the road. He was skidding as he rounded cliffs toward his destination, the Bikini Bottom Gas Company.
Squidward transformed himself to appear like the concrete beneath the factory and snuck past the security checkpoint. Slipping beneath the gate, he found his way to the central control room, seamlessly shifting to a speckled white color and texture as he passed over linoleum flooring. There was only one fish by the door, and he was completely zoned out. Squidward snuck up behind him and wrapped two tentacles around the man's neck, suffocating him like two boa constrictors working in tandem.
Squidward then strangled two more workers in complete silence. When the coast was clear, he made his move. He cranked up the gas pressure at every critical juncture in Bikini Bottom. First to go was AquaDuct. For a second there was a surreal mundanity in the silence, but then there was a loud burst and the roof and walls shook.
"What was that?" A worker above shouted.
Squidward then did the same to the Krusty Krab, but he spared Squilliam's house. Soon he had blasted nearly half the buildings in Bikini Bottom to smithereens. 'That ought to be enough chaos,' Squidward thought as he rushed out of the building before he could be caught.
Bikini Bottom was a charred hell outside. Fried fish everywhere. Squidward had no emotional response at all; there's a lot of dead fish in the sea these days. So he set himself straight towards the massive Easter Island house once owned by Squilliam. There, he armed himself with an old harpoon gun and headed to the roof of the Squilliam Estate.
"People of Bikini Bottom, hear me speak!" Squidward shouted.
A crowd of survivors gathered around.
"For too long have you labored for the pleasure of a cretinous few! For too long have you accepted ambivalence and weakness! Only through me can you be safe and free in this New Bikini Bottom! Find Mr. Krabs! Find Sheldon Plankton! Or else you will be destroyed!"
The scared and helpless citizens of Bikini Bottom began to run off and find the targets of Squidward's rearrangement. For once those destined to rule would be ruled, and those destined to be ruled would rule. As the first slaves of the new order were brought before him, shackled and reduced to common sea critters, Squidward made one request to complete his conquest.
"Bring me the unibrow of Squilliam Fancyson!"