Marcus

Marcus is a sad story about a nice average guy who never has any luck with girls.

Everyone liked Marcus. It was hard not to like him. He wasn’t very talkative, but he was a good listener. Whenever you were feeling down, he would always say something to cheer you up. He was a really nice guy. He never drank or smoked. He got up early in the morning, worked hard all day at his job and in the evening, he would go home and watch TV. It wasn’t the most fun or interesting life, but Marcus seemed happy.

At the age of 25, Marcus still didn’t have a girlfriend. In fact, as far as anyone knew, he had never even kissed a girl. Nobody knew what the problem was. He wasn’t very good-looking, but at the same time, he wasn’t ugly. He wasn’t very interesting, but at the same time, he wasn’t boring. He wasn’t very intelligent, but at the same time, he wasn’t stupid. He was just a nice, average guy but for some reason, girls never seemed to pay any attention to him.

One evening, Marcus invited us all to a party at his house. What we didn’t realize until we arrived was that it was a going away party. Marcus announced that he was making a big change in his life. He was leaving our small town and moving to a new country. We were all excited for him, but the party was bittersweet. At the end, when we were saying our farewells, we all had a lump in our throats. Marcus wasn’t the most entertaining guy in the world, but we all knew that, deep down, we would miss him terribly.

After he left, I tried to keep in touch with him. I sent him a few messages over facebook, but he was never online. Life went on as usual for me. I was busy with work, I got married and all my time was taken up with looking for a new house.

As time went on, everyone began to forget about Marcus. Now and then, when we gathered together, someone would mention Marcus’s name and we would all stop and remember him. We all wondered how he was, but nobody had kept in contact with him. Once, we decided to give him a call, but no one had his new phone number.

One day, I sent Marcus a message on Facebook, asking him how life was going and if he had any news. I was surprised when he actually replied. He told me that, shortly after he arrived in the new city, he had met – in his words – “a wonderful, amazing girl”. Her name was Anita and he said they were very happy together.

I was shocked that he had eventually managed to get himself a girlfriend. I was very happy for him and glad that he had finally found love. Naturally, I spread the word, telling all of our friends about Marcus and his new girlfriend.

One night, when I was sleeping in bed, I was awoken by a strange pinging sound. At first, I was so tired that I just rolled over and tried to ignore it. But it persisted, so I reluctantly got out of bed. My head felt very groggy and I could barely open my eyes.

When I checked my phone, I saw that there were ten messages from Marcus on my Facebook, all of them saying, “Hey! Wake up!”

I was annoyed that he had woken me in the middle of the night, but I also really wanted to chat with him. Just then, I noticed a strange smell. It was gas. I ran to the kitchen.

To my horror, I realized I had forgotten to turn off the gas. While I had been sleeping, the apartment had been slowly filling up with deadly gas. If Marcus hadn’t woken me up when he did, I would have been killed in my sleep.

I went around the apartment, opening all the windows and the front door. When the gas had safely dissipated, I picked up my phone and sent Marcus a message.

“Dude, you just saved my life!”

“Just wanted to see if you still miss me,” Marcus replied, adding a smiley face.

Before I could explain, he went offline again.

I probably would have forgotten this strange incident, if not for something that happened to a friend of mine a few weeks later. He was on his way to an important meeting and was about to cross the road, when he suddenly got a message from Marcus. It just read: “Hold on a minute”.

My friend stood on the sidewalk and started to reply to Marcus, asking him what he wanted. All of a sudden, a truck came careening through the lights at breakneck speed, hopped up on the curb and then crashed into a wall. It just missed my friend by inches. If he hadn’t stopped to reply to Marcus, he would have been killed.

When I heard about his lucky escape, I sent Marcus a message on Facebook asking him, “Are you psychic or something?”.

In response, Marcus only sent a few smiley faces and a message saying, “My girlfriend Anita says hello”.

Last week, I had to go out of the country on a business trip. I was due to spend the night in the city where Marcus had relocated. I really wanted to see him again, so I sent him a message on Facebook and tried to arrange to meet him. Unfortunately, he didn’t reply to my message. When I got off the plane, I messaged him again, but there was no reply. I kept trying to contact him, but eventually, I had to give up.

The next day, my trip was over and I had a plane to catch. I was disappointed that I had been unable to get in touch with Marcus, but what could I do? I got a taxi to take me from my hotel to the airport.

On the way, as we neared the airport, I was staring out the window, when I noticed a small monument by the side of the road. Something about it caught my attention. There was a wreath in front of it and some fresh flowers. There were two photographs on the monument, a smiling man and woman. One of them looked familiar. I shouted at the taxi driver to stop.

When he pulled over, I jumped out of the car and ran back to the monument. My heart was pounding in my chest. As I got closer, my eyes teared up and I fell to my knees. It was Marcus.

When I looked around, the taxi driver was standing beside me.

“You knew him?” he asked.

I couldn’t reply. I too choked up to say anything.

“That young guy was a real hero,” the taxi driver said. “The city erected this monument to honor him. They say he had just arrived in the city. As he was leaving the airport, he saw a girl being attacked by a man with a knife. He jumped in and tried to save her. He tried to rescue her, but the man overpowered him and stabbed them both to death. The police caught the man a few days later. They found his bloody wallet clutched in the young guy’s hand. It turned out the man was a serial killer. He had killed a lot of girls before and he would have killed a lot more if your friend hadn’t led the police straight to him… Yeah, you should be proud… Your friend was a real hero…”

I looked at the other name on the monument… Anita.

So this was how Marcus had met his girlfriend…

And now they would be together forever.