Chapter 6: Squidward

The night air was shattered by a bizarre sound. It vaguely resembled music from a wind instrument. In this case, it was. Squidward was busy practicing with his clarinet, though it didn't appear it was doing him any good. His playing was awful. It was awful before, but now it sounded much worse than a sad and dying animal.

Squidward didn't seem to notice, as he continued to play.

He kept playing until something impacted his window. It was a rotten tomato. Squidward growled, walked to his tomato splattered window, opened it and stuck his head out. Another tomato screamed in and splat right on his face. "Hey!" Squidward shouted. "What's the big idea?" "You stink!" The person who threw the tomato roared.

Squidward growled and grabbed an orange from his fridge. He went back to his window and hurled the orange at the one who threw the tomato. It missed. "Drat!" he shouted. Then another tomato came flying at Squidward and hit him smack dab in the middle of his forehead. "Gah!" he shouted. He closed his window and wiped the tomato residue off of his face.

"My playing has taken such nosedive." said Squidward. "What's going on?" He sighed. "At least Spongebob's not here to ruin my genius." Squidward said.

Squidward felt an odd feeling in his gut when he said that. He tried to play his clarinet again, but his playing was awful. Even he had to admit it. He angrily threw the instrument down and yelled. "What's gotten into me?" He wondered. "This has been going on since Spongedork Loserpants left." he said. He felt something welling up in his stomach. "What the?" he wondered at the sudden feeling. Squidward sighed and decided to do some painting instead. He pulled out some paint and an easel and set them up in his living room. He dabbed some paint on a pallet and set to work. "What to paint tonight?" he asked himself.

He decided to just let his muse decide itself and selected a color. He dabbed the brush into the paint and began to paint on the canvas. The color Squidward chose was a bright yellow. "Hmm." he thought as he was working. "Let's see how this turns out." he painted and painted, eventually choosing white and brown and red. He kept painting for what seemed like hours. Squidward then chose a light blue.
He carefully painted out the details of his developing picture. As he painted, a wave of sadness and guilt came over him. He tried to shake it off, but it was nearly impossible. He almost made some mistakes as he was painting.
"Gah." Squidward said as he accidentally put some blue where yellow should be. He waited for it to dry some more and then painted over it. He kept painting until the picture was finished. He took a step back to admire his work, and gasped at what he saw.
The picture he had painted was a portrait of Spongebob himself. This did give Squidward a scare. But what scared him the most was the expression he had painted on Spongebob.

The portrait, rather than being one of a happy Spongebob with his ridiculous grin, was one that bore an expression of broken heartedness. Similar to that picture Squidward had taken during their first Christmas.

His eyes had swollen to enormous proportions, his brows were furrowed as one about to cry would have them. From one eye, a teardrop leaked out and threatened to fall to the sandy bottom. His long nose drooped down over his chest. Squidward just stared at his painting for what seemed like forever.

"What the?" he said to himself. He could hardly believe what had just come from his paintbrush. It was as though and invisible hand had guided it. "Get a grip Squidward." he said to himself. "Remember life is much better without that annoying Squarepants." But somehow, the feeling that he had done something terrible just didn't seem to want to leave.

Squidward decided to fix himself a hot meal. That always helped him relax and forget his troubles. He wend down into his kitchen and looked at some of his recipes. He soon spotted a recipe for a gourmet burger. He smiled. "One of my favorites."

Squidward gathered the ingredients; some romaine lettuce, black angus cow shark beef, Swiss cheese, tomato, bacon, and the most unusual ingredient of them all, some onion rings. He pulled an electric griddle out of his cupboard and plugged it in so he could heat the patties.
He then began to chop and slice the vegetables. Squidward hummed a tune as he did so. Soon, the griddle was heated enough to cook the patties. He took one out and slapped it on the griddle. The aroma of the cooking meat made him think of something. Something familiar.

His mind's eye took him back to the cash register at the Krusty Krab. He saw Mr. Krabs, pacing around, anxious to hear the sound of money being put into the register. "Order up." he heard a familiar voice say. Squidward then saw Spongebob come out of the kitchen with some Krabby Patties. "Order up!" He repeated, Squidward was frozen in place. "Spongebob?" he said to himself. "What's wrong?" Spongebob asked. Mr. Krabs rolled his eyes."Yes, it's Spongebob." he said. "Now get back to work!"
"Aye aye captain!" Spongebob exclaimed. Squidward began taking money from customers. He opened the cash register, before noticing a hooded figure standing in line. He kept taking orders and money until the hooded figure came up to the register.
"May I take your…" he began, before a leering face burst from underneath the hood yelling "Surprise!" Squidward was startled when he saw that it was Red himself next in line. "What are you doing here!?" Squidward asked. "I'm hungry." Red said with a wicked looking grin. "What do you want?" Squidward asked.
"Don't worry." said Spongebob in a sweet voice. "I know exactly what he wants."

Squidward was confused. "Uh, Spongebob." he said. "What's going on?" "Isn't it obvious?" Red asked. Spongebob's face soon started to become angry yet the emotion in his eyes expressed pain and sorrow. "Don't you remember that old rule?" He asked in an angry, hurt voice. "Do to others only what you would want them to do to you?" He asked. "Huh?" Squidward asked. "And you said I'm an idiot." said Spongebob. "What?" Squidward asked again. "It's the Golden Rule Squidster." said Red. "Treat other the way you want to be treated."

"You hated me!" Spongebob shouted. "What did I ever do to you to deserve that kind of treatment?" Squidward felt he had a million answers but he couldn't say any. No words could escape his lips. Spongebob breathed heavily before continuing. "I didn't do anything to you, and yet you treated me like hagfish slime." "Well you always bother me with your childish behavior…" said Squidward. "That's still no reason for anyone to be treated so badly." said Red. Squidward wanted to say something to him, but no words could come out. Spongebob just glared at him.
Red shook his head. "Oh Squidward." he said. "You have a lot of apologizing to do."
"Oh why bother?" Spongebob said. "He'll never apologize. He's too self-righteous."
"But I-" Squidward tried to say but was stopped when Spongebob put his yellow hand in front of him. "Save your breath." he said. "If you wouldn't forgive me for bothering you so much, why should I forgive you?"

Squidward couldn't believe what he was hearing.
This was not like the Spongebob he knew. "I hope you have a nice life." Spongebob said. "I know I never will, since all my friends have betrayed me."
He and Red began to leave.

Squidward tried to chase after him, but he disappeared. He felt incredibly guilty. "Spongebob!" he called out. But he only got an echo in reply. He was about to go looking for him when he smelt something burning.
"What the?" he said. Squidward snapped out of his fantasy when he heard his smoke alarm going off. He soon saw that his meat he was cooking was completely burnt.

"Yikes!" he yelped, grabbing a fire extinguisher and putting the little flame out. The burger was now ruined. Squidward just sighed. His appetite was now ruined. But more importantly he was thinking about what Spongebob had said to him in his apparent dream. "What have I done?" he asked to himself. Squidward just sighed and sulked away to his bedroom. "What have I done." he said. "How could I be so stupid?"

Squidward laid down on his bed once he arrived to his room and changing into his nightshirt. He frowned. He felt like a real idiot.

Squidward got under his bed sheets and rested his head on a pillow. Though he didn't want to admit it, Squidward was really, truly, and deeply sorry for what he had done. He lay awake for a few moments more, before drifted off into a fitful sleep.