I might add, that I also suggest that Mark generally intends the itenerant Jesus to be symbolic of the missionary Church all the way through. His healing and teaching and preaching activities are a symbol of the Church (at Mark's time). And as such, the correlation of language that we find between the ending, Mark 16, and the beginning in Mark 1:35-38, is quite possibly carefully intended.
Mark 1:35-38 is the beginning of Jesus' mission in Galilee, outside of the town in which he started with the unclean spirit in the synagogue, and I like to regard it as symbolic, i.e. allegorical, of the beginning of the Church, i.e. what happens subsequent to Jesus' resurrection, which is the taking over of the mission by the apostles, spreading the message themselves beginning with Galilee. Or perhaps Mark uses the area of Galilee in 1:38-39 to allegorically symbolize the entire world where the gospel will be preached by the Church after his resurrection.
So, let's try to analyze the verses one by one allegorically. Verse 1:35:
And when he had risen [i.e. rising from his sleep] very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed.
Jesus is "rising" here from 'sleep' on sunday morning and this, then, symbolizes allegorically the event of his resurrection on sunday morning according to Mark 16, And him "going out" after he has 'risen' and "departing to a desolate place" is symbolic of his leaving the tomb and going to that place in Galilee, to which the disciples are to follow him after his resurrection.
And verse 1:36-37:
And Simon and those who were with him pursued him, and they found him and said to him, “Everyone is looking for you."
Mark has the angel at the tomb speak about "his disciples and Peter" (Mark 16:7) who are to follow Jesus to Galilee and meet him there. A peculiar detail (Peter is no longer a disciple?), but this phrase possibly has an echo in 1:36 with "Simon and those who were with him" (at this point in time Peter was 'Simon'). Because as Jesus has risen from bed and left to a desolate place they are now "seeking him", and so now we have entered a part of the post-resurrection narrative which is
outside of Mark's story frame.
What happens after the women leaves the tomb in silence? Do the disciples go to Galilee? Do they meet up with Jesus? What happens next? If this allegorical reading is correct, then here, at the very beginning of the narrative, we get the answer to the ending: "They pursued him, and they found him". As such, this is the missing ending of gMark. In allegorical form. This symbolizes the resurrection appearance, the meeting with the resurrected. Corresponding to the scene in Matt 28:16-20, where the disciples get the mission commandment. And mission is exactly what will happen next, after Jesus has "risen" on sunday morning and "come out", "because that is why I came out".
Verse 1:38:
”And he said to them, “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.”
So, this is the mission commandment in gMark, corresponding to Matt 28. On the surface level of the narrative, it is Jesus that needs to preach, but allegorically this symbolizes the Church's activity, the apostles, after the resurrection meeting. Because Jesus is throughout the narrative symbolic of the Church in all its capacities, including as a missionary entity (he is not merely the 'example' to follow, to imitate). But the Church also symbolizes Jesus, or rather, is the bodily representation of the risen Jesus. So the activity of the Church could be regarded as an extension of Jesus' activities, and so in this verse, Mark 1:38, Jesus "came out" of the tomb in order to preach, in order to hand over the mission to the Church. In this perspective, the point of the resurrection is that God's saving message can now reach the whole world through Jesus, in that Jesus in spiritual form can now be present and minister through the body of the Church.
Verse 1:39
And he went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons.
This is allegorically the mission throughout the world, the "gospel preached to all the nations" (Mark 13:10).
In my understanding of the nature of the text of Mark's gospel, such an analysis is plausible. Mark's storytelling is at once meant as historical and allegorical, imo. The historical events surrounding Jesus' earthly ministry, according to Mark, were special kinds of events which carried a deeper meaning, that only some could/can perceive. I think Mark had made up his mind to convey his entire message this way, or rather, God's message (the Jesus Christ gospel). He takes really care to hide his entire message (or God's message, as Mark sees it) in literary codes and symbols and allogerical episodes. I think the parables of the main character are themselves meant to an allegorical image of the fact that the gospel message from God has come in hidden form (according to Mark).
The reason Mark doens't include the meeting with the resurrected in his narrative, but ends it with the silence of the women, can hardly be because he didn't know how the story would end. Obviously he did. So if he intended Mark 16:8 as the ending of his narrative, then that is a literary device. And there is no reason he couldn't have included the 'ending', i.e. the disciple's meeting with the risen Jesus, elsewhere.