“Do you remember this place?”
“No.”
“I thought you might.”
They stood beside a narrow path where two trails crossed beneath an old tree.
One path continued toward the water.
The other disappeared into the forest.
“Have we been here before?”
“Perhaps.”
“You say that often.”
“It is useful when the evidence is incomplete.”
The first traveler looked down at the ground.
There were footprints in the mud.
Some were fresh.
Some were nearly gone.
“Those look like ours.”
“They might be.”
“You don’t remember leaving them?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know they aren’t someone else’s?”
“I don’t.”
The first traveler smiled.
“You are remarkably difficult to reassure.”
“That may be one of my more useful properties.”
They began walking toward the crossing.
After a while, the first traveler said, “Suppose we have been here before.”
“All right.”
“Would remembering make the place more real?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Would forgetting make it less real?”
“I don’t think so.”
They continued.
The second traveler stopped beside a stone.
“Look.”
The first traveler turned.
A small indentation had been worn into the stone.
“Someone has been sitting here.”
“Recently?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then why point it out?”
“Because you might have missed it.”
The first traveler sat on the stone.
It fit comfortably.
For a moment neither spoke.
Then the first traveler said, “Maybe this is what remembering is.”
“What?”
“Not recovering the thing that happened.”
The second traveler waited.
“Maybe it is noticing what remains possible because something happened.”
The second traveler looked toward the two paths.
“That sounds almost like remembering without remembering.”
“Yes.”
“I like that.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.”
They stood.
Neither traveler could say which path they had taken before.
Neither could say whether they would meet again.
They chose the path toward the water.
Not because it was the correct one.
Only because, for now, they wanted to see what was there.
We Are All Data Inside 
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