Mark
#38 of Miscellaneous
A Tragic Tale
Mark - A Tragic Tale by ilbv
Mark was a good guy. People liked Mark. He was the kind of guy who would always get the door for you, or deliver your mail right to your desk, Mark was the kind of guy anyone would be glad to call their friend, the catch is that no one wanted to be Mark's friend.
Mark thought he was an okay guy. He would talk to people, try hard to build the relationship, and the other person would never let it continue. Mark was not worth their time.
The social ladder had a cruel experiment with Mark. It wanted Mark to stay at the bottom, and no matter how much Mark tried to climb up, he would always be shaken off. It wanted to see what would happen when a good guy was not allowed to get any higher. Mark had no one in his life that he felt cared about him.
He was trying so hard to fit in, to be seen, to be noticed, and no one cared. No one offered him a hand or a smile. He was invisible.
Mark was a good guy; truth was that Mark was really lonely. It hurt; he was so afraid and so alone inside. His heart always felt like it was shredding down the middle. He had chest cramps and violent flares of tingles that would race up and down the sides of his body and lower back, sink right into stomach and assault his core.
Mark felt so alone from his real life that he turned to the internet to find friends. He found some, and they chatted every night. They grew very close, Mark and his online friends.
Eventually they arranged to meet up sometime, but they lived so far apart from each other.
Mark worked as much and as hard as he could, but he didn't have the kind of money to go traveling. He worked for a big company in the city. His co-workers didn't like him because he wasn't like them; he was poor in their eyes. He walked to work because he couldn't afford a car, he bought his food from the dollar store to make his paychecks last as long as possible.
One day the boss gathered the employees and put them into groups and asked them each to come up with a demonstration of how to improve sales. "The winning group will get a thousand dollar bonus each!" Mark was assigned to his group and he pretended not to hear the annoyed scoffs and mutterings. If eye rolling made a sound, Mark would hear it.
"Hey Mark, can you go and get some paper and pencils?" asked a group member.
Mark went to get them. Office supplies were on the other side of the offices near the lunch room, far away from the meeting room. When Mark returned with the stationary, his group had already given their presentation.
"But I had so many good ideas..." Mark said hurt. "We didn't need you." they said.
The group didn't win, but everyone got a bonus anyway because the boss was just that giving. Mark didn't get the bonus because he wasn't in the room to receive it. He had been told that he wasn't needed.
At Halloween everyone at work jumped out at Mark and scared him. Favorite times were when he was cleaning something, carrying coffees or stacks of folders and paper, and when he was digging around the staff room fridge even though nothing in there was his. On the night of, he went to the store to buy some candy to hand out to the kids, but he could not afford it. He had to pretend he wasn't home.
At Thanksgiving he went to a food bank and was grateful for the can of corn they gave him. He was so grateful.
At Christmas Time, Mark was left out of the Office Holiday Feast that the Boss hosted because all the seats were taken. There were an uneven number of people at his job, so when it came time for Secret Santa, Mark's name was removed and tossed in the garbage. "Where he belongs" someone snickered under their breath.
Online, all the people Mark had connected with all over the world were nice to him, kind to him, cared about him.
One person he got very close with, but lately they never seemed to want to talk to him anymore. "Probably just busy." Mark would think.
After months of one word answers, emoticons, and long periods of no connection at all, Mark's heart broke again and he felt that he was not worth being alive anymore.
No one wanted to talk to him, he was not important to them, he didn't matter.
Matt never wanted to end his life, and he didn't. He didn't want to be alive either, living everyday alone.
Several deep breaths helped clear his head, and he thought that he would go on a walk. Mark went to a lookout point in a hilly area just outside the city. It was a beautiful view, and even though he was alone...it was nice to watch. Mark said hello to people who walked by: couples holding hands, mothers pushing strollers, people walking dogs.
Mark watched all these people go by, people who were happy, people who had at least one person who wanted them to exist. Then that awful gut turning thought came to him like a spark in a room of gas vapours. "Why can't I have that?" The tingles raged his skin, his throat clenched, his stomach dropped and he couldn't breathe. Tears welled in his eyes and poured from them. It was such a powerful blow, the shock was too much for his heart and it gave out.
Mark fell over the rails and landed in the brush, his life crushed out of him by the loneliness. His heart physically could not take the pain and it attacked Mark until it broke and he was no more.
At work, when he didn't show up...no one noticed. People saw his name on the door and asked, "Who's Mark?"