Time...

"I am Omniscient, I am Infinite. I control every destiny, but my own. You may pass from this dimension to the next, where my power has no meaning. But I am here. Always here. And always Alone. Your lot in life is short.I but blink, and you are gone. But I have always Been here. And I will always Be. This is my punishment."

" Your punishment?" She asked, eyes wide with wonder, and fear. " What crime have you commited?"

" You of all should know, there often does not need to be a crime to warrant a punishment. Sometimes mere existence is enough."

" But that implies there is someone else, besides you." She watched from the safety of the tower while galaxies sped across the ever changing sky. Dizzy, and exhilarated, she spread her fingers and leaned into her hands, supporting her weight on the glass.

" There is only me."

" How could you ever be lonely in such a wonderous place?" The spinning worlds slowed for a moment. Colors beyond imagining, spectrums of light from alien suns glittered onto the glass, pulsed with life and disappeared, and flashed again.: "How could anyone see so much, control so much, and ever feel less than whole?"

He turned her face gently,and she looked into the eyes of the oldest soul.

" Because these things you see now, they are long past. I see only death, child."

She pulled her chin from his warm hand, and watched the swirling symphony of life outside the glass.

"Even if they are gone now, they were once alive, once full of hope" Her graceful fingers traced against the glass, following the movements of the brightest stars

" Hope is a waste. Too many of you spend your lives hoping, instead of finding your needs met in the moments you have. "

She turned to him with her innocent eyes. " Hope built entire civilizations."

"Hope left them all in ruins" he replied, once again pacing the marbled floors. " There is nothing of any certainty but death. Time takes all, in the end"

With a brief moment of regret, he shifted her world into alignment, and she was gone.

Stock Photo Courtesy of NASA