Lightening Crashes !! An old mother (slowdeath)

There are perhaps twenty regular posters on the forum, and some much larger and uncounted number of lurkers. And right now there are three people in chat, but there's no way of knowing exactly who until you are in there, and the chat room she finds not so comforting. It's strange even with friends, like sitting in a pitch-dark cellar conversing with people a distance of about fifteen feet.