Mystery Friend

You live your life knowing you are worthless.

You wake up another morning, wondering why you still bother and why the world is yet to take you up into its sleeves and act as nothing happened. Maybe it doesn't even care enough to take you. 

You feel the sting in your heart, the feeling of abandonment. The inevitable rejection you constantly face all through your life even though you are twenty-five now. 

You don't bother to try, or at least, you think you don't, but your birthday is getting closer again and like every other year, you have resurfaced into the world screaming for them to see you—breathing being just like them. Maybe a few notice you, maybe they just pretend to but you accept it and a brush of content is painted on your face. The hope that maybe this year will be different from the last twenty and maybe someone will actually care but you know better. You always did. 

You visit a friend, Benjamin. You call him Benjamin, he says he is your friend but you know he isn't. You know he will choose a soccer game over you anything—every time. 

You want to tell Ben about all the pains and rejections. You want to hold him and make him promise never to leave but he is human and he will never keep his promise. 

Ben is a good person. All doctors are good but there is a negative matter in you. Something that since birth has made you an unbearable burden to everything surrounding you.  Even your mother had left you on the sidewalk and your father; seems you don't have one. 

You open your mouth to say, “my birthday is tomorrow, Ben.” But Ben has other plans. Ben will forget but you should at least try. You've been trying for twenty years now, what is one more year?

You say the words, finally. Your heart stops beating. You are waiting for a reaction. You are waiting for a scream, a smile. Okay too much, an acknowledgement even, but nothing. Ben is busy. His phone is more important. The football news must mean more. You don't blame him. You are basically a ghost in the human world and no matter how much you try, they never see you. 

You had even tried to take your life. You had visited the church building and stood just around the rooftop. You had wondered if the ground would even notice when you fall. You had wondered if God even sees you or maybe you are just as anonymous as you are to humans. It is why you chose the building. It felt closer to him and maybe when you fall, you would find the chance to ask him why he created you only to give you a fragile heart in a cold world. Why he had turned you into the villain of every story. 

You wonder if you ask God, would he answer? Or would he be like Benjamin; Kate; Laura; Timothy, name them.

In the end, you don't jump. In the end, you know you will be accustomed to the pain. In the end, you know you will embrace it till it is everything you know. Hurt or be hurt. You are willing to be the villain. You said that last year, the year before that too, but every time July draws near, you slowly fade into the abyss, waiting, longing for someone to reach out. You know your way to the top but all you seek is a final pull. 

You will exhaust all your energy year after year, climbing out the pit and every time you reach the top, you fall back because everyone who promised to pull you will walk out stepping on your fingers till you can no longer hold on.  

Your room is as small as it gets, your bed is just enough to hold you in one position and you basically don't have a kitchen. 

You want to buy a bedsheet to cover the rodent-housed bed but you are jobless. You want to change the shattered mirror, the only pair of jeans you have but again, you are jobless. 

Your life is a rollercoaster of pain ups and downs but in truth, the ups are never ups. You get close, you give yourself credit for that, but you never reach up. Your last interview went well but their cousin had just graduated from psychology, exactly the position you were applying for. 

You stare at the mirror again. You don't see Ben. You stare harder and you recall you don't know anyone with the name Ben. Nobody told you too much pain would feed on your sanity. You don't have anybody so who could possibly tell you? 

You check the uncovered ticking clock at the top of your apartment and it is exactly twelve am. You hope for your phone to chirm with a birthday text. Maybe the one writer you helped the other year. Maybe the friends you texted on Facebook or the ones you retweeted, maybe even the one you liked their post and shared on your wall. There's none. You are not surprised but still, it hurts.  You don't want to cry but a rivulet of tears already takes it a place on your face and you want to ask God why? But like every day, you know he will not reply. You pick a rope from the rope net that holds your bed in a steady position. This is the year. If you can get yourself to tie it perfectly above a tree, then place your neck lazily into it then you will have succeeded but somehow you feel cowardice by the thoughts and maybe you should. Killing yourself is a sin. It is cowardice. You know you won't do it but still, you scribble your death note as though anyone will ever find it. 

You escape your room out the funny weather with midnight blue sky and the whistling wind. You don't look at the stars. You try not to but they call you. If you're lucky, you will be amongst them but you are not particularly known for your bright luck. Bright luck. You laugh at the thought of it but you notice something. 

You see a wooden box you had carved to be a mailbox. You see a white paper shining out of from the slight opening. No one ever texted you. No one calls you. Who will attempt a mailbox with no address?

You walk towards it. You know it's a joke but you must confirm. Maybe this is the little extra push into your never fulfilled quest. You open the white envelope. There is a paper. A letter. You open it and for an hour, maybe a second or a split one, your heart stops. 

Happy Birthday Samuel. 

There is no name, there's no sender's address. There's just “Happy Birthday, ” and there is your name.  There's a red flower. There's a flower.