A memory is burned into this strange material, an echo of another lifetime...

"I came face-to-face with a creature more beautiful and bizarre than anything I have ever seen.
Despite no discernible eyes, I do not believe it is blind.
It was huge, glorious, serene. But then - with a flick of its tentacles, it was gone.
I have thought of nothing else since. I can only think of the whale. whale. whale. wail."