>Oh heck, I'm not confident of anything. This is an experiment! A
>serial experiment. But hopefully without quite as much
>gratuitous surrealism as that phrase might tend to suggest in anime
>fans of a certain age. :)

Gratuitous surrealism leads to psychological indigestion.

Psychological indigestion is that feeling you get after certain works (Lain being one of them, 2001: A Space Odyssey being another for me) where you're not sure what just happened, but you feel as if trying to understand it might cause irreparable damage.

"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."