They offered us the chance to see anything we wanted. The two of us, anything that ever was, anything that would or could be, we could see it. We did not know why they came to us, or how they could offer us such wonders, but we accepted. We each got to choose one. I asked you to pick for me, and I would pick for you. I only needed to think for a second of how I would use this precious gift. I asked them if, with all their knowledge of the universe and its possibilities, they could let you see yourself as I saw you. They did not speak with words, but we knew their response. If? we sensed them reply. There is no if. There is no doubt. We can show him. We can show anything. To me, what they shared with you lasted half a moment, but later you told me that you spent lifetimes experiencing what they showed you. You had trouble explaining exactly what you saw, but I still know. They showed you the light in your own eyes, seen through mine, the flickers of passion that powered your existence. They showed you the nights I spent half-dreaming of you, hands yearning to hold you. They let you feel the absolute sureness that I felt every moment I thought of our lives together. The certainty. I could never put it into words for you, but I’m sure they put it into feeling. It was walking across stones in a pond, damp with algae and water, but never slipping. Stepping without regard for the perils beneath the surface, for there was never any doubt that the next stone would rise just ahead. They let you feel the deep chasm within me that had formed long before we had met. Then, they showed you how you put it right. You did not fill it, nor did you cover it up at the surface. You didn’t stitch it together or force it closed. You made it so that it never existed. You turned back time and kept the fissure from ever forming within me. I was not fixed. I was absolved. That was what I wanted them to show you. They, with their endless knowledge, could be the only ones to truly prove to you what you had done. You thought yourself irreparably flawed, and I wanted them to show you your own perfection in its purest form: the way I saw you. As a shining bit of hope and goodness wrapped in the rags of an imperfect world. They then asked you what your choice was for me. You asked for time, and they allowed you that. It took you years to think. I didn’t rush you; this was not a decision to be made without certainty. We grew old together in the time it took to give them an answer. That time, to me, was worth more than anything they had to offer. Finally, finally when the wrinkles had etched our faces with the lifetime we had shared, you gave them your answer. Time, to them, was of no importance. They had mastered time, and your decades of pondering lasted no longer than a single one of their breaths. You asked if they could show me anything. Anything, we sensed them say. You asked them to swear, whatever you asked, they would do whatever it took to show me. They swore they would. You held me close, and asked them to show me anyone, in the entire boundless universe at their fingertips, who had loved more strongly than you did for me. They paused. This moment of silence seemed to be an eternity to them. Slowly, they said, We are sorry. We gave our word, anything that would or could be. But this… it seems that cannot be. These omniscient beings, the possessors of fathomless knowledge, of all possible existences, had failed. They could let you see yourself as I saw you, but this? It seems we transcended their knowledge. They could not, for all their infinite wisdom, find a love greater than yours.