Object permanence

He was a simple man, or so he liked to think. He thought he was one of those guys who is born, lives for a bunch of years, and then dies without making an appreciable mark on the universe, one of those guys like the billions who had come before and the billions who would follow. Then he met his guardian angel.

“What, you wish you’d never been born?” The angel said. “I suppose I can arrange that.”

And just like that, the whole universe blinked out of existence.

“Yeah, right,” the simple ...