Shore Leave (aka Brother) is the seventh episode in the Salad Fingers series.
Plot
As Salad Fingers is digging holes outside with his finger puppets, occasionally tasting the sand (which he calls "floor sugar"), he finds the decomposing torso of an old corpse. Salad Fingers immediately "recognizes" the cadaver as "Kenneth", his "younger brother" who is back from "The Great War" on shore leave. Salad Fingers pulls the gruesome, dismembered corpse out of the hole, saying it was rude of him to leave for "The Great War" without him, but promises to draw him a hot bath.
The next scene shows Salad Fingers turning a handle, which pulls a clothesline, drawing Kenneth, who is dressed in a white dinner jacket, out of a wardrobe. He starts to talk about life with the women of the Great War. Salad Fingers has prepared a dinner of sand for his guest, saying "I hope you like... SAND". Salad Fingers tells Kenneth of his life, keeping busy with "every shift I can... [and] sing[ing] at all the functions". There is a flashback in which Salad Fingers measures the distance from his door to a tree named "Mr. Branches" with a clickwheel and subsequently teases it for its slow movement.
It's now evening, and Salad Fingers is with Kenneth outside near the same hole he found him in. He cries over the fact that Kenneth has to go "back to the ghastly trenches". He salutes Kenneth and sings "We'll Meet Again" for him. He then kicks Kenneth back into the hole. A dreamlike sequence follows in which Salad Fingers, now wearing a white dress, sings the same song on a stage in front of an audience at a theatre. After singing a few strains, he complains to the pianist (who is shown as the silhouette of a marionette, with strings attached) that the key is wrong, walking off the stage as the screen fades to black.
Character Appearances
Debut
Trivia
- In this episode, Salad Fingers mentions the Scottish towns of Croxley Heath and Cowdenbeath, indicating he may be aware of real-life locations.
- This episode featured the last use of the theme "Beware the Friendly Stranger", before Firth decided to abandon the sound in favor of original music.
- Despite the title being retained in the original video, as of 2014, David Firth has renamed the episode to Brother in subsequent 'Full Series' videos, as seen in the chapters' titles.
Gallery
| Salad Fingers Episodes |
|---|
| Spoons • Friends • Nettles • Cage • Picnic • Present • Shore Leave • Cupboard • Letter • Birthday • Glass Brother • Market • Post Man • Harvest |