The year is this year, the place is this place, and the rest of the details are ambiguous. Given this monumental heap of information, you, the reader, are expected to parse out the humanity from these words-on-paper with no aides other than the meager mash of brain matter that is cowering behind your eyes. What an undertaking!

Why, the statistical improbability of your success would suggest that if you should, indeed, succeed, then all the laws of thermodynamics must be no less ephemeral than the words on these pages. And from what we have learned thus far, your chances of success go up with every word you read. We’re watching entropy cry even now.

So as you stress and strain yourself against the walls of incomprehension whose bricks are the words that are to come, remember this: you, unlike all of your fellows, are able to perceive something that has never been filmed, nor photographed, nor drawn.

Others see only ticks and squiggles, black on white, barcodes to scan, but nothing to buy. You must be crazy.