Hello and welcome to the Drabblecast, episode 498.

The Drabblecast is an audio fiction podcast magazine that brings strange stories by strange authors to strange listeners,

such as yourself. I'm your host, Norm Sherman. Our story this week looks at loneliness and social media.

I'm by no means a loner, or any other descriptor that makes me sound like I write a Harley through town

writing wrongs with a boomerang of justice, but I am alone a lot,

when I'm not with you, that is, in this special time we share together.

And while I'm not often lonely from being alone, I sometimes am, and either way, I've spent

enough time alone to have accidentally developed some habits born from working and living with

nary a soul around to tell me to knock that shit off because it's scaring them. With no one around, you're living in a world that

gives you the illusion of being consequence-free, which opens a lot more doors to a lot more nudity.

Your usual conversations with your cat go from deep and meaningful like everybody else's to feeling

essential for real one-on-one connection with your partner. And you don't have to hold your farts anymore.

And in fact, you begin to feel aggrieved that you were once ever made to.

And that acrimonious resentment builds up and begins to express itself over time in the form of bitter,

grudge-bearing farts, directed at no one in particular, because there's no one in particular around

to bear out the hostility of your aggressive, angry farting, farts that are clearly coming from

a place of inner turmoil and pain.

If left unaddressed, the unchecked tendency to anger fart develops into more than just

a self-pitying tantrum.

It becomes a habit, a habit so ingrained you begin to confuse the tone of your fierce antagonistic farts with the affable, well-adjusted farting behavior of those on the outside.

And eventually, eventually you lash out at someone you love and make them the object of your

cynical, discontented farting, and you hurt them with your farts.

...