The blogger swallows hard.  His footsteps echo loudly as he walks hesitantly toward the center stage.  He folds his moist hands in front of him, protectively. Squinting like a vampire under the bright stage lights, he peers into the dark before him. The eyes. Hundreds of eyes look back at him. Oh, God.
He shuffles his feet, and tries to stand tall. Resolute. This is it, a voice whispers in his head.

But the eyes don’t care.  He finds no trace of humanity, only the uncompromising stares that have already pronounced sentence on him for his unworthiness.

He feels his head filling with hot blood. He hears a cough in the darkness.  A few seconds later another, more liquid cough joins the chorus. Cough. Cough.  Two more join in from somewhere closer.  And soon the auditorium is barking a cacophony.  It is a coded message but one he is all too familiar with.  Go away.  You are not needed. We don’t need yet another blogger.

His hands are shaking now. Fight or flee, a reptilian voice hisses in his brain stem, Dec…ssss…ide now.

Wel…” His mouth was filled with cotton. He cleared his throat with a phlegmy retch, and repeats in a newly discovered voice:

“Welcome to my blog”.