“All I want is nothing more…
To hear you knocking at my door.
'Cause if I could see your face once more…
I could die as a happy man I'm sure.
When you said your last goodbye…
I died a little bit inside.
And I lay in tears in bed all night.
Alone without you by my side.”
But if you loved me, why'd you leave me?
*Creak*
(Slaps McKill returned to his cold house as he shivers walking through the front door…like he’d walked through the ghost of the love that once resided there. He was only going to be a minute…quick shower, quick repack, hit the door. But something was…off. Almost like he COULDN’T make it quick. He looks at the trash covered coffee table and the couch he would barely remove himself from once she left. He drops his bag and slowly walks down the hall but it was almost like he was being carried by feet he didn’t control. Something was compelling him…and he felt hope rise in his chest. He didn’t know why but he had a small glimmer of hope that he was going to open that bedroom door and they were gonna be back. The door opens?
…it’s just…gray…everything’s a shade of gray.
He carried himself into the room somehow…approaching the tiny little bed with the tiny little pillows and covers they’d just gotten her. And all he can think to himself is…God, how much he wished he could have to watch Frozen II for the 5,000th time again. Every soiled diaper, every little cut or bruise, every time she cried…
…he could hear her crying in his sleep…he still does.
He runs his hand across all the stuffed animals until he reaches for a peculiar one…a crocheted purple squid. He picks it up and looks at it and he’s knocked back to the cold reality that his girls aren’t there…and there’s a “Squid-Man” waiting to be decimated in Amsterdam. He stands up wiping tears from his eyes as he grabs his bag and opens the door to the bedroom he once shared with his now estranged wife. And it’s just as grey as the rest of the house to him. The house, of course, HAS color but when the color has been taken from you, all that’s left is the gray. He walks over to her side of the bed and sits…he picks up a broken picture frame with shattered glass. The main crack covers his face and profiles the face of his Jami.
…he never raised his voice…no matter what she said to him, he never raised his voice.
He knew he needed to repack and shower and hit the road but he couldn’t stop himself from laying on her side of the bed and running his thumb across her pictures face letting the tears fall…where love once lived had long gone away as he drifts off to take a little nap because the tears wore him out.)
“And I can't tell if you're laughing…
Between each smile there's a tear in your eye.
There's a train leaving town in an hour…
It's not waiting for you…and neither am I.”
Jesse Russow: AND I’LL TELL YOU ONE MORE THING! THIS-
(Slaps was physically present for their camera time but between being haunted by the ghosts from his house once more and being almost 7 foot tall on an International flight. He was trying to give his most feral snarl into the camera but his heart…it just wasn’t in it. So he was letting Jesse do all the talking.)
Jesse Russow: We’ve WARNED you! Time and time again NOT to take us for fools! The “Squid-Man”? Are you fuckin’ serious? Maybe PWS WAS better off without Star Stormz hiring stupid, dense ass gimmicks like “The Squid-Man”. Guess what bitch, Slaps LOVES calamari! Ain’t that right, Slaps!
(Slaps just took a deep breath and exhaled…with annoyance. Jesse kinda squares up to him more to check on him.)
Jesse Russow: Hey what’s up big fella? You okay?
Slaps McKills: This is vapid and pointless. Do we really need to spend all this time talking about a delusional sap in a squid mask?
Jesse Russow: Well you got a better way of getting your point across? You gotta send a message to Mack McKane too! We can’t just stand around and be hunted, kid!
(Slaps looks around and sees some construction materials and he walks over grabbing a piece of what appears to be a rod of rusted rebar walking back to the camera. He takes one end in each hand, inhales with his eyes closed and exhales with them wide open and glaring at the interviewer with a low growl as he struggles for a second until suddenly the rebar is completely bent into a ribbon! He holds it up, hardly breathing heavy, before dropping it with a loud clang as he walks off muttering to himself…)
Slaps McKill: …Squid-man’s bout to have a real rough day.
(The cameraman calls for the cut as the interviewer bends down and struggles to lift the bent rebar showing it to the cameraman and gossiping about it as Slaps is walking down the hall. But the last thing we see…is a cloak flap as if someone else had been lurking in the shadows the whole time but was now about to give chase as we fade to black.)
“I don’t wanna be a soldier.
That the captain of some sinking ship
Would stow…far below.
…if you love me…why’d ya let me go?”