After seven years of being virtually alone, Martin fell into a state of almost consuming depression. Of course, he had always been unsatisfied - his anxiety made it hard to sleep at night, and those stories that he read made him crave a woman's caress - but this dark cloud that hung over Martin's head was unrelenting in making him miserable.
Against his own will, Martin's thoughts began to drift of his family that consisted of his parents and two sisters. Had his sister Mary had her first child yet? Had his other sister, Amy, gone to college like she had always talked about? Were his parents even alive anymore?
He pondered these thoughts for months, all the while mentally torturing himself for losing contact with his family. He remained awake until the early morning hours, wondering why exactly it was that he chose to isolate himself. He hyperventilated and sobbed into his pillow most nights. On the nights that he really lost control, he would consume large amounts of alcohol to obliviate all the negative thoughts that haunted him on a day-to-day basis.
Nearly after a year he began to think about his family again, Martin decided that he was going to establish a relationship with them for the first time. He had not maintained a single relationship throughout the eight years that he had spent outside of his parent's house; he hadn't even talked to anyone in months, and it had been years since he participated in a real discussion with another human. Martin didn't even know if he was ready, but he craved to establish some type of a relationship with another person.
He went to the house that he grew up in, not sure if his parents still even resided there. Regardless, Martin stood on the small porch in front of the house with a bouqet of flowers in his hand that he intended to give to his mother. After a deep breath and a moment to reassure himself that he had made the right decision, Martin knocked on the door and took a step back.
After a moment with no response, Martin began to grow confused. There were vehicles in the driveway of the house (not the cars that his parents used to drive, but that didn't matter - they could have gotten new cars) and he even heard talking from inside the house. Frowning, Martin walked around to the side of the house and stood on the tip of his toes, trying to catch a peek of what was going on inside the house.
Even after eight years without seeing his family, he recognized them in an instant. He first saw his mother, now fifty eight years old, and only now beginning to grey. His eyes then shifted to the beautiful woman seated next to her who Martin recognized as his older sister, Mary. In her lap sat a little girl of about three who was a spitting image of her mother. Martin smiled. Next to Mary sat Amy, Martin's older sister, who was arm-in-arm with an attractive male who Martin assumed to be her husband. Martin's eyes began to well with tears. It seems as though he had missed a great deal by breaking off contact with his family.
He returned to the porch and knocked again, confident that they were only distracted by their own conversation and didn't hear him the first time. This time, they would hear him, and they would answer.
No answer.
After several moments of knocking, Martin opted to just walk in the house. He was wary, but he assumed that it would work out once they discovered that it was him and not some crazed burglar. He breathed deeply and walked into the house that he was so familiar with.
The house was filled with bouqets of flowers, which took Martin by surprise. His mother hadn't been a huge fan of flowers, after all, and these arrangements didn't even match each other....
"We'll all miss him, Amy," his mother said with a sorrowful tone. "Your father was a great man."
Martin's heart dropped. His father had died. That explained the bouqets of flowers scattered around the entry way of the house. He stood in his place, pondering whether or not to proceed into the living room to see his family.
"And how could Martin be this selfish?" Mary half-shouted. "I get it, he had his own problems. But we're supposed to be family," she finished, her voice strained. If Martin's heart had dropped into his stomach at the news of his father dying, his stomach had now fallen to the wood floor with a thump. He hung his head in shame while a lone tear slid down his face and onto the floor, next to his broken heart.
"Oh, Mary," his mother began, "you could never understand Martin. He's always been a very sad boy. We could never force him to be a part of the family." He could hear the sadness that was so plain in her voice.
At this point, Martin entered the living room. Mary's daughter was now lying with her head in her mother's lap, who had tears welling in her eyes. Amy had her face covered with both of her hands while her husband sat quietly with his arm around her. Martin's mother observed her own family in silence, her expression unreadable.
Martin stood in the entry of the living room for several seconds before speaking. "Uh-" he began before realizing he had no idea what to say.
No one looked up at him.
"Mom?" he asked, confused as to why no one was paying him any mind.
No response.
"Amy?" Nothing. "Mary?" She hadn't made an indication that he had been heard at all.
"Okay, I understand why you're all pissed at me," he said, "but please, please talk to me," he said in despair. "I'm so sorry for the way I've been, all these years, I can't even tell you what's wrong with me. I'm so sorry, you guys."
"Well, Mom, I guess we'd better get going," Mary said. She coaxed her daughter to stand up and she followed. "We'll come back tomorrow. Jane's getting tired, and so am I," she explained.
"Wha - Are you guys seriously going to ignore me?" Martin asked, incredulous.
"Okay, Mary," his mother responded to his sister, standing up to hug her. "I love you, sweet baby," she whispered into her daughter's hair. "Your father and I love you so much."
"I love you, too," Mary said back. They both had fresh tears beginning to fall.
As Mary walked with Jane out of the house, Martin asked, "Mary?" but to no avail. Mary had not so much as acknowledged his existence in the slightest.
Martin was now beside himself. "Someone please answer me!" he yelled.
No response was given to Martin.
He dropped the bouqet of flowers and ran out of the house in a panic. He hopped into his car and drove to the small downtown area which promised alcoholic beverages and partial isolation.
"Just a budlight, please," Martin requested to the man behind the bar when he arrived.
"Hey, Jim, did you see that football game last night?" the barkeeper asked to the man that was standing behind Martin. "Craziest shit I've ever seen!"
"Excuse me, sir? A budlight please," Martin asked, irritated.
"You're damn right I did," Jim responded. "Cutler is a phenomenal player."
From there, the two men broke into a riveting conversation about the amazing sport of football with Martin literally in between them. Extremely offended and even more annoyed, Martin exited the bar and entered a restaraunt that was close by.
He stood in the entrance of the establishment, waiting for the hostess to seat him. After two whole minutes of him standing in front of the young girl with her saying absolutely nothing, he finally asked, "Could I be seated, miss?"
"Table for three?" She asked.
"Um, no, miss, it's only me," Martin responded, taken aback.
"Yes," a man said behind Martin. The man and two small children walked past Martin, following the waitress that intended to seat them.
Am I fucking invisible? Martin asked himself, and a sudden realization struck him. Absolutely no one was responding to him. His family who he hadn't seen in eight years didn't even acknowledge him in the slightest. These people who work for a business wouldn't even acknowledge him, and that was their entire job.
He ran out of the restaraunt and asked the first person he saw, "Can you hear me?" They walked passed him without so much as a glance.
"Excuse me, ma'am?" he asked to an elderly woman seated on a bench. "Ma'am?" he asked again when she didn't say anything to him.
Martin was frantic. How long had it been since he had really talked to anyone? he asked himself. After a moment of panicked thought, he came to the conclusion that it had been nearly three weeks since he had talked to anyone.
In a terrified state, Martin returned to his own home. He retreated into his own stories for the remainder of the day, and decided that he would solve everything the following day.
When he arrived to work the next day, Martin was almost confident that everything would turn out to be okay. He was horribly confused and even a little sick to his stomach because of it, but he had some faith that things would work out.
That was why he tried to say hi to the beautiful girl named Susan who worked at the library. When she didn't respond to him, Martin convinced himself that she was only snobby. Or maybe she hadn't even heard him. Yes, that could be it.
Although it physically hurt him to try to make contact with another person, Martin tried to ask a co-worker Gary if he could help him find a copy of Sylvia Plath's Bell Jar. Instead of replying to Martin, Gary asked the beautiful girl Susan, "Have you seen Martin? He hasn't come to work in the past couple days, that's really unlike him."
"Gary?" Martin asked. "Gary, I'm right here!"
"I don't know, Gary," Susan answered. "He's kind of a weird guy, isn't he? Maybe he offed himself."
Martin returned home, laughing manically the whole way home. He decided that he was losing his fucking mind.
tangentwithtanner
dededos
romaincrisis
kianamaiart
