During my session with Dr. Lecter today, he spoke about the stars. He told me that the light we see in the night sky is ancient—that some of the stars that appear brightest to us have already died, their final light still traveling across time and distance. He said it is a reminder that what we perceive is not always what is present, and that some things linger even after they are gone.
He also referenced the Greeks, how they believed the constellations were once people and creatures, lifted into the sky as stories, as if memory alone could make them eternal. He asked me if I thought the universe remembers us, if our presence leaves an impression in the fabric of space-time, or if we simply vanish.
I told him that memory does not alter physics, and that once something is gone, it is gone.
After that he just smiled at me.