Parasocial: A short story.
Sitting on his couch, this is Basel Walker. He has just woken up and sits scrolling through his notifications on his phone. They amount to several likes on social media from people he has never met and a message that he has an appointment on Friday with his therapist. He rubs his eyes, trying to get the night's dreams to leave. His poor shape laid back. Black circles like halos to terrors unknown wander around his apartment. When he looks in the mirror, those rings around his eyes always bother him. He lives a sad life, but he is content. Living a life like this would bother most but, he feels he knows people deeply through the novels he reads and the videos essays he watches. He loves the tube and the multitude of voices it brings to his world. The novels he enjoys are anything from old pulps to paperback originals from the nineteen seventies and eighties. However, it's is the tube where he hears voices—the ones of other human beings. During the month...