The types of love:
Eros (Erotic) - Red
Storge (Familiar) - Orange
Ludus (Playful) - Yellow
Philia (Friendship) - Green
Philautia (Self-Love) - Pink
Pragma (Enduring) - Purple
Mania (Obsessive) - Black
Agape (Selfless) - White
PART 1
There was once a girl called Challenge and the first thing her parents did when she opened her eyes was to give her a vial of love each. In school, Challenge learned that these vials are what kept people alive and that only love can fill them. Her room was full of these vials given to her by her parents on a regular basis and their content was orange. Her parents had vials of their own and their content was orange, black, a bit of red, and a bit of yellow.
Challenge never paid attention to the vials. She would much rather read and play and make up stories. From an early age her parents began telling her about the Bond, the connection between two people which would guarantee that your vials stay full all the time. Her parents showed her their Bond, a blue rope tied around their waists which connected them.
“How do you even go to the bathroom?” a weirded out Challenge asked them.
“Well, we take turns.” her dad said blushing.
“Oh cheer up, you’ll grow to like it especially if you like what’s on the other end of the rope.” her mum said and elbowed her husband.
They both fell in fits of laughter. Challenge made a spitting llama face and disappeared.
“Hey! It’s better than an empty vial!” her mum called after her but she was gone.
Challenge grew up and left home to follow her own desires. She was so good at making up stories that she became a comic artist. She moved into the city, far from the town she had grown up in. She had her own place for the first time and she was thrilled that there was finally no one to bug her, no one to give her homework and no one to tell her to make her bed. When she unpacked for the first time she smirked at the 10 orange vials her parents had snuck in while she was sleeping. She had told them to cease the silly vials business. She kicked them under the bed - she would clean up later.
Months passed and Challenge was riding a great wave of creativity. She wrote a successful story which got her attention as an emerging graphic novel artist and she was working on another masterpiece. She would tend to her hobbies and little garden on the balcony and raid bookstore after bookstore and enjoy a pleasant read at her favorite cafe.
Soon after she began remembering the parks she had been playing in with other children as a kid. There were very few parks in the city. One day she craved crumble pie which her mother used to make all the time and to her disappointment found in no bakery in the city. And she started missing the stories they would all tell when the family gathered around the fireplace. None of her peers seemed interested in doing that. They all seemed cold and reserved. Such little sad notices began filling most of her days until she yearned to go home. So she visited home putting on a show that everything was fine and she didn’t need anything. Her parents and family were thrilled that she was visiting after so long and they made her crumble pie and they went to walk through the park and they told stories the way they used to. Challenge was eager for her sadness to go away, but when she tasted the crumble pie it didn’t taste the same way as it used to and when she walked through the park it didn’t look the way it used to and when she listened to the stories they were the same stories from ages ago and they weren’t very soothing. She left her visit feeling more empty then full even if she was carrying 7 days’ worth of crumble pie and a stack of photos in her suitcase. When she opened it at home 10 more orange vials tumbled out and she frowned and kicked them under the bed.
Work was dwindling and her art became more of a job than a pleasure. Her masterpiece had to be put on hold because she wasn’t feeling creative at all and all she wanted to do was curl in bed and watch cartoons day in and day out. But she had to pay the bills so she temporarily illustrated books to buy herself more time. Her mind kept worrying where was the home she had left just a few short years ago.
One day she decided to clean her room since it had been piling now. She was vacuuming under the bed when she felt she pushed something with the vacuum cleaner. She stopped it and went to look. 20 dark vials lay on the carpet. Challenge jumped back in horror. All the vials she had ever seen both in real life and in commercials had vivid colors. She stood there frozen staring down at the things. Eventually she kneeled beside them and touched one. She turned each of them to see their charge but they were all empty. Finally she found one which had a drop of grayed orange in it left.
Challenge didn’t know what to do. She was homesick by now and depressed. Her home was not there anymore. She looked around her messy place and saw a house not a home. She had no home. The Bond came into mind but she reeled away from it. She would rather starve to death than put that stupid thing on.
As the days passed Challenge found herself spending more time in the closest bookstore. She’d read all of the comics and stories but this time she was over in the self-help section. She had never read anything outside her usuals and this was awkward. The other unusual thing was that the bookstore cat watched her a lot when she was in the self-help section.
“You look gray.” the cat told her one day.
Challenge jumped back clutching the book she was reading.
“Hey, you need to pay for that.” the cat smirked.
Challenge stared at it.
“‘s all right.” the cat said and let a paw drop off the shelf it was lying on. “They won’t see and won’t know.” he gestured to the other people.
Challenge looked about her and indeed everyone was either looking at the books or chatting with the cashier. No one was looking in her direction.
“Are you… really here or am I seeing things?” Challenge asked the cat.
“Oh I’m here alright. You can pet me if you don’t believe it.” the cat said.
Challenge touched the cat’s paw and surely it was real.
“Can all cats talk?” she asked.
“No, I’m special.” the cat grinned. “No idea. Personally I’ve never spoken to another cat.”
Challenge thought for a moment.
“If you can talk… do you also need vials to survive?”
The cat grinned, reached into a pocket in his fur and pulled out a vial much like the humans’ and he showed it to Challenge. Its content was pink and white.
“Those pretty books you’ve been reading lately won’t tell you about these two. Well, maybe in another country.” the cat said seeing Challenge’s confused look.
“Are you sure that’s love and not some beverage?” Challenge asked certain now that the cat was making fun of her.
The cat laughed heartily.
“Tell you what, why don’t you go to the bookstore in the next neighborhood and check out its Vials section. Yes, they are obsessed with these things and have more books than these guys here.”
Challenge did that and found a book on other types of love. One of them was about self love which was discouraged from what she remembered in childhood. She read about red, orange and yellow - the sexual, familiar and playful love. But she didn’t find anything on white. Maybe the cat was lying.
She went back to the original bookstore and found the cat sleeping on a shelf.
“I found out what the pink one is - self love. What’s the white one? It was in no book.” she said to the cat.
It yawned and turned around to face her.
“You read fast if you managed to go through 200 books in two day. Did you sleep?” it said.
“Answer me!” Challenge growled.
“Not with this attitude.” the cat said and jumped on the other side of the bookcase.
“Hey!” Challenge yelled but when she got to the other side of the bookcase the cat was nowhere to be seen.
She cursed in her mind and left. Challenge looked at her empty vials every day. Her parents had been sending her vials in the post and they were bright orange until she looked at them and they all turned gray and drained before her eyes. Only that one vial with the gray orange drop in it stayed as it was. Why was it lasting? Why wasn’t it going away? She wasn’t feeling any better. She still didn’t want to talk to anyone. She still thought the Bond was the dumbest thing ever and she felt as empty as her vials. She was still too proud to admit anything was wrong to her parents or to ask for their advice.
Finally, she caved in and she crawled in shame to her mother and told her she couldn’t take it anymore. Her mother told her about the Bond again. Her father had the same response. Challenge felt abandoned. She felt this was very wrong deep down. Also, there was no one she liked or felt attracted to. She had no meaningful connections and she was slowly dying. Challenge returned to her place in the city feeling more alone in the world now than ever before.
Challenge couldn’t find the bookstore cat no matter how long she waited there and the cashier had no idea where it could be. Challenge went people watching one day. It was a big city. She saw all kinds of people. For the first time she actually looked at others and studied them. She had never done that before. She had always been so wrapped up in her own empty vials. She saw people walking dogs and groups of people talking and laughing together and groups of people doing yoga together and couples wearing that horrid blue rope which made her sick. She imagined their vials were all full so she went back home feeling left out. As she was walking past a mirror building she glanced at her reflection and jumped back. Challenge approached her reflection in horror. She had dark circles around her eyes, her hair was tangled from lack of combing, her skin’s color was gray and she had spots of red irritations here and there. She had also lost weight and her cheeks were beginning to sink.
“When has this happened...” Challenge wondered but then she realized she hadn’t looked at her reflection in a long time.
Challenge had been crying that night and was now taking a break to catch her breath. She was out of ideas and she was clutching the vial which used to have the drop of gray orange love. It was now dark and empty like all the others scattered over the floor.
A knock came on her window. She looked up and saw the bookstore cat. Challenge jumped from the bed and opened the window.
“You look like you’ve seen better days.” it said.
Challenge wiped her nose on the back of her hand.
“May I come in?” the cat asked.
Challenge nodded. The cat sat on the other end of the bed and Challenge stood there holding the window open for a moment. She was so sad for herself but she was glad to have another living soul near her.
“What have you been reading lately?” the cat asked as it made itself comfortable on the bed.
Challenge sniffed. “Myself...” she said looking down.
“That is the most interesting book you will ever read in your life. I’m glad you started early. You’d be amazed how many people don’t even know this book exists. And I have another secret to tell you: the book hasn’t ended. There’s a sequel coming up soon.”
Challenge was about to close the window when she saw a bit of blood on the pane. She turned to the cat.
“Did you cut your paw?” she asked.
“Oh, it’s nothing.” the cat said and looked its right paw. “I heal fast.”
Challenge went into the bathroom and came back with her first aid kit. She disinfected the cat’s paw and bound it in a clean band.
“Thank you.” the cat said.
Challenge smiled at it and the cat smiled back.
“So I still don’t think you read all those books I mentioned last time.” the cat said.
“No… I didn’t. I couldn’t follow them. I was so desperate and rushed that I couldn’t even read. I’m… sorry I yelled at you.” she said in a breath.
The cat made a dismissive gesture with its bandaged paw.
“It’s fine.” it said. “Uhm… it just occurred to me we’ve never introduced ourselves. My name is Cesar.” and he held out his good paw.
“Challenge.” Challenge smiled and shook his paw.
“A worthy name for your deeds.” Cesar said.
“Hardly.” Challenge said. “I’m a wreck.”
Cesar saddened and dropped his ears a bit.
“Listen.” he said. “I can talk to anyone who is open enough to take me into consideration. But this society of yours binds the minds of everyone making them blind and deaf and... you were the only one I’ve talked to in many years. You heard me that day. No one else did. So… you somehow escaped deafness.”
Challenge frowned.
“What do you mean society makes us deaf and blind?” she asked.
“It teaches you… things… that are not mandatory in life. And it doesn’t give you alternatives to those things.” Cesar said.
Challenge’s eyes widened.
“The Bond...” she murmured.
“That ridiculous blue rope, yes.” Cesar said. “It’s advertised that it will bring you happiness. Ha! You would be surprised how many people are lured in by the promise. They jump and bind each other prematurely only to end up getting black or empty vials! I’ve been in their pockets and saw them.”
“Black?” Challenge asked.
“Mania - it’s the obsessive type of love in which one develops an emotional dependency on the other and they will basically fall into depression or even suicide if they ever break their Bond. Few are strong enough to survive a break.”
“Why are people so desperate to have full vials?” Challenge asked.
“Have you already forgotten your pain and emptiness?” Cesar raised his eyebrows.
Challenge looked at the heap of empty vials on her floor.
“But… it didn’t kill me, did it?” she said. “They are all empty now. Even the last gray drop disappeared.”
“Something else is keeping you here.” Cesar said.
“There are other things than love which keep us alive?” Challenge asked in surprise.
“Oh yes. Like I said, your society is doing a bad job of giving you alternatives.” Cesar said jumping on her messy desk and looking at her draft drawings.
“May I?” he asks pointing at the novel that brought her fame.
“Sure.” Challenge said.
Cesar pulled the book out, sat down on his hind legs and browsed through its pages.
“I love these drawings.” he said to her smiling.
“That’s the story of a dolphin who traveled the ocean to find his dream and ended up colonizing the land.” Challenge smiled. “It was a foolish story.”
Cesar closed the book and smiled.
“You look a lot like a dolphin.” he said.
Challenge laughed.
“Well, the dolphin always had his friends with him. He was never alone. I guess that’s why he never went through what I’m going through now.”
Cesar put the book back.
“You have ambition and you have something you want to share with the world.” he said.
Challenge pressed her lips for a moment then looked at Cesar.
“What other types of love are there?” Challenge asked.
“There are 8 in total.” Cesar said. “The one that is mostly advertised is the red type - Eros or the erotic love where people are attracted sexually. Another is the orange one - Storge or the familiar love. This is mostly coming from memories of good old times. The yellow one is called Ludus, the playful love that appears between new lovers. The green one is Philia or the friendship love. Many centuries ago it used to be revered by the scholars since it was lacking the sexual part but was very strong. The pink one is Philautia or self love. You generate it when you are true to yourself, to your desires and dislikes, and when you belong to yourself, meaning that you are content with what you have and what you can do and when you don’t get in your own way. It’s what fuels you when you fight for what you believe in. The purple one is rare and it’s called Pragma or the mature love. It comes in the long-term between people who have been together for a long time and respect their strengths and weaknesses. The black one is Mania, the obsessive love where you sanity basically hangs in the other person. It’s very dangerous and imbalanced. And finally, the rarest of them all, the white one, Agape, the selfless love. This comes to someone who has reached a peace with the world and themselves and is amazed by the beauty of life and sees wonder in all trivial, amazing, ugly and beautiful things.”
“Wow...” Challenge murmured. “I never knew there were so many...”
“A great book that will give you a nice overview is Love’s Chromatic Vial. 4th shelf towards the left side.”
Challenge reached for a pen and paper and scribbled that down.
“So what else keeps us alive other than love?” she asked.
“Ambition. A dream. Hope.” Cesar said. “It’s funny really because these are all forms that different types of love can take. For instance ambition is a form of red love. A dream is a form of orange love and hope is a form of white love. I recommend Shapeshifting Vials for this topic. It’s mind blowing. Top shelf, middle.”
Challenge wrote that down.
“You have white in your vial.” she said. “How did you get there?”
“I’ve lived many lives.” Cesar smiled. “But I’ll give you a hint. You won’t get it by keeping to your room and you won’t get it from books alone although books help a lot. Real life will get you white love if you can survive it.”
Challenge mulled that for a bit then shook her head as if coming out of a trance.
“I think that’s way over my head right now. But I’ll remember.” she said.
Cesar smiled.
“I should be going now.” he said.
“Will you come back?” Challenge asked.
“Will you visit me at the bookstore?” Cesar asked. “You’re not locked in here, are you?”
“Oh I’ll absolutely come!” Challenge said.
“G’night then.” Cesar said.
“G’night. And mind your paw.” Challenge called after him.
Cesar smiled at her and trotted away on the rooftops. Challenge closed the window and saw her room for the first time. It was very messy. She turned off the lights and got ready to sleep when she saw a small light coming from somewhere on the floor. Usually her room was pitch black at night. She bent over the edge of the bed and saw one of her vials was glowing bright green - a beautiful deep emerald she had never seen before. She took the vial and fell asleep looking at it.
Challenge slept well that night and she was fresh in the morning. First thing she did was she cleaned her room and took out a lot of trash. It was a gorgeous rainy day outside. She washed her beat up face, applied some cream on her sores, combed her hair and went to the bookstore with the big section on Vials.
As she walked she became aware of just how many commercials were on red and orange love and the Bond. She gripped the green vial in her pocket and proudly pressed on. She would get to the bottom of this.
PART 2
Challenge spent the next months devouring the bookcases on Vials from the other bookstore. The more she read the more hope she got and the better she felt. She regularly spoke to Cesar about what she read and how different types of love worked and what forms they could take and sometimes Cesar would tell her a story or two from his previous lives and how he had learned of other types and forms of love. Challenge’s spirit gradually returned to her and she was able to resume work on her masterpiece. Her vials now glowed mostly with emerald however pink was beginning to fill one vial.
One day Challenge read the last book in the Vials section and she discussed it that evening with Cesar. By now she had built a mental model of how love worked which was to her satisfaction however a few things still didn’t add up.
“You’ve done it.” Cesar told her from the shelf he usually lay on, one paw dangling. “You read them all. It’s quite an impressive collection I must say, these books are rare in your one-sided society.”
“Hardly anyone came to those bookcases and I’ve spent days reading in there. People wouldn’t buy them even when they dropped their price.” Challenge said.
“What are you going to do now that you’ve finished reading?” Cesar asked her smiling.
“Some of the books and even you told me that white love is in the wilderness and that I can’t learn it from a book.” Challenge said. “Something else triggers it. Different books spoke of very different triggers. Some used metaphors that didn’t make sense to me. But I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to stop talking to you.”
Cesar smiled and gathered his tail about him.
“What is your greatest desire?” he asked.
“To find an alternative source of life support - one that doesn’t require the Bond or red or orange love. Right now green is working very well for me but it’s dependent on you.” Challenge said. “I’m just starting to experiment with pink but I don’t know how long that will keep up. I feel like I could lose it any moment. Black is out of the question. Yellow is too fleeting to last. Purple has a dependency as well. And white… is way over my head. Or heart. I didn’t get the idea that it needs a dependency so I guess that’s where our hope lies.”
There was a pause in which Cesar went on looking at her smiling. Challenge looked sideways deep in thought.
“I want to try my model in the wild but… I’m comfortable here.” she finally said. “I don’t want to have empty vials again. It hurt a lot.”
“Then stay.” Cesar said not ceasing his smile.
They exchanged a few more ideas about Challenge’s model and then said goodbye.
Challenge couldn’t sleep that night. She felt torn between her ambition and comfort. As she tossed and turned in bed she noticed how dark her room was. It was normally lit at night by the soft glow of her vials which she had neatly arranged on her desk. She got up and saw that they were all still full but that half of them were now glowing with a dark light.
She jumped out of bed, turned on the lights and snatched one of the transformed vials. It was filled with intense black. Half of them were. The pink vial was still present and the rest of them were green with a bit of orange. She steadied herself and badly wanted to talk to Cesar. She spent the rest of the night writing and drawing to soothe herself because she couldn’t sleep.
The next day, as soon as the bookstore opened she darted inside and looked for Cesar. He wasn’t on his usual shelf and she didn’t see him in any of the other bookcases. She asked the cashier where the cat was.
“Hmm… That is unusual. I’m sure he’ll show up. He’s a cat after all.” the cashier said and shook a bag of treats noisily.
But no cat appeared. Challenge waited a bit longer, reading the titles of books in other sections to pass the time. She wondered why she had never read anything about geography or chemistry or architecture. But then she grew restless and after taking one more tour of the store and not finding Cesar she went outside.
Where else could she search for him? The black vials on her desk really worried her so she went back to the Vials section of the other bookstore and flipped through all the books she recalled mentioned black love. Too many weird metaphors and some dry definitions. She didn’t understand what was going on.
“So much for my brilliant model.” she muttered to herself.
Challenge went back home and wrote her observations in her Vials journal. Events that had happened, Vial behavior and timing and how she felt. She looked back at her older notes. Not enough data to draw a conclusion.
A week passed and Challenge was not able to find Cesar. He didn’t come to her window and she couldn’t find him in the bookstore. She began walking around the city aimlessly going to neighborhoods she’s never been to before. She kept looking for Cesar stirring at any stray cat she got a glimpse of. But she never found him.
She went to all the bookstores in the city looking for any information on black love but she only found the books she had already read and day by day her green vials turned black as she yearned to speak to Cesar.
Finally after a month, all her vials were filled with the dark glow of black love except one which was half pink half black. The orange was gone. Her soul was ripped with yearning but she was out of ideas. She wondered why the vials weren’t emptying.
Challenge could take it no more. She packed a small backpack with a set of clothes, her journal and her half pink half black vial and left. She had no idea what she was going to do but she couldn’t stand the sight of the bookstore, the city and her apartment. Her feet carried her to the train station. She looked at the board and the next train was leaving in 10 minutes for Tubwhick. She had no idea what that was or where it was but she bought a ticket.
The train passed through a few little villages. Challenge gazed emptily out the window at the people in the station, at the little houses, the farms, the trees, hills, the mountains in the distance. She didn’t care what her vial looked like.
Tubwhick was a medium sized town in the mountains. Houses looked different than those in the villages Challenge had passed by and there wasn’t a single office building like in the city. They were decorated with flowers and ivy and there were many trees growing between them and on the streets. There were very few cars and people mostly walked or cycled. Challenge was enthralled by the beauty of the place and she walked around admiring the architecture and the little bridges built over canals of stone. She visited a few museums and finally settled in a cafe which had a few bookcases in the back. She started reading a book about living architecture.
“Excuse me. Excuse me, miss?” a voice said.
Challenge looked up from her book. A teen wearing an apron stood before her.
“We need to close for the night.”
Challenge looked outside. It was night. She felt a tearing pain in her heart as she realized she was far away from her room and from Cesar. She left the cafe and went out on the street. Many people were still walking around. Some other shops were still open and the streetlights glowed beautifully, some of them shrouded in ivy.
She was tired and went to the nearest motel and got a room. She collapsed from exhaustion not bothering to look at her vial.
Challenge spent a few more days in the charming little Tubwhick viewing its statues, parks and bookstores and reading about architecture and molecules before finding herself on a train bound for Walingfur.
This train ride passed through many tunnels and in between sharp mountain walls but sometimes, for a few seconds they would be riding a ridge and Challenge could see far off into the distance the beautiful valleys and hills and cities.
Walingfur was a town aspiring to become a big city. There was lots of construction going on in half the town so Challenge stuck to the other half where little houses and bookstores still existed although people were sad. She overheard a conversation in one of the bookstores which had comics she had not seen before.
“Sales have dropped since last year.” the cashier said to someone in the back. “Half the town has moved out with all this construction.”
“It will get better. Those buildings are supposed to bring jobs and more people.” another voice replied.
“Those people are not the kind that read.” the cashier said and sighed.
Challenge was amazed. Those looked like office buildings. People who worked in offices didn’t read?
Challenge was getting short on money and she had no desire to go back to the city so she took the next train to a place called Stoneridge. By this point she had bought a map and was reading about the places she had been to and about Stoneridge. Her next destination was one of the most famous attractions in her country. People from far away came just to see the splendid suspended bridge gardens. And they had tree houses there, too.
Challenge went straight to the suspended bridges and it turned out to be peak tourist season. She asked to help with work maintaining the gardens in exchange for a place to sleep. They agreed to host her for a few nights. Challenge spent all daylight everyday from dawn until dusk tending to the flowerbeds and the vines and the hedges and the trees and she would spend a few hours of the night in whatever bookstore she could find reading about the history of her country and mathematics. They gave her a spot in the attic of the cafe and a few blankets.
It was once again time to go and Challenge used her last money to buy a ticket to the small town of Fyurien which got its name from the Fyurien limestone woods which grew inside a nearby cave.
Challenge searched for work all of her first day but couldn’t find anything and when night came she climbed to a viewing point in the park and sat on the bench looking at the beautiful lights of the town. She finally broke into tears, mourning Cesar. She had been trying to get rid of him from her mind and make the pain go away but all she wanted to do was hug him and tell him how much he had helped her. She didn’t recall ever thanking him for his friendship. She took out her vial. It was the first time she had seen it in weeks. It glowed almost entirely black except for a small pink line. She clutched it and cried all night on the bench with the town at her feet.
Challenge woke up shivering before dawn. The sky had begun to light up but the sun was still an hour away. She got off the bench and started walking through the streets to warm herself. She passed by a bakery.
“What do you mean you’re sick?” a fat man was hollering in the phone inside the bakery. “I don’t care! It’s a weekend! There will be field trips to the cave and they will all be passing by here and they’ll all be hungry! Yeah? Well you can keep your sorry nose out of my bakery!”
Challenge knocked on the window.
“We’re not open yet!” the man yelled at her.
“You’ll need more than that dough on the table if you expect a busy day.” she said.
Challenge spent all day in the bakery with her hair tied back and sleeves rolled up knitting pretzels and taking batches out of the oven. It turned out to be a full day indeed and they had to close early since they had run out of food to sell. But the profit was substantial. She spent the next day the same way and then a few more. Then she left and went to see the limestone woods herself.
The cave tunnel was long and full of glorious stalagmites which reached to the ceiling and stalactites which looked like pouring water frozen in time. Challenge made a few sketches in her notebook. She liked Fyurien. All their bookstores had stalactite decorations at their entrance.
She was spending a quiet afternoon in one of them reading about natural psychology when she notices someone standing next to her. It was a little boy who was clutching a book staring at her from under his eyebrows.
Challenge smiled at him and he looked down at the book he was holding.
“C-Can y-you...” he stammered in a little voice. “Can y-y-you sign my copy p-please?” and he held out the book.
Challenge could see it was her first novel about the dolphin who conquered land. She was stunned. The boy’s hands began to tremble but she took the book.
“Of course I’ll sign it.” Challenge smiled. “What’s your name?”
“C-Cyllan.” he mumbled still looking down.
“And Cyllan what did you like about the story?” Challenge asked.
“H-he got his parents to come on land with him.” the buy said.
Challenge stared at him. She had actually forgotten about that part of the story. She was expecting him to say that the dolphin had been brave facing the kraken or that he was the first to thrive on land. The boy thanked her and scurried away.
Challenge took the train one more time and the next place in line was a city called Hroodrock. It was on the other side of the mountains and wasn’t known for anything in particular. As she walked the streets she met with the familiar feeling of homesickness. Her mind strayed too much for her to able to read so after a day she jumped on a night train back to her hometown.
Her parents were overjoyed to see her and announced the whole family that she had dropped in for a surprise visit and grandparents and cousins and uncles and aunts soon gathered at the parents’ house to see Challenge.
Challenge would normally reel at this and run away but she embraced them all and for the first time saw just how much they had actually missed her. Her grandmother wouldn’t let go of her hand for a whole hour until she insisted she needed to use the restroom. Challenge wondered why had she ever wanted to run away from them all.
She spent the next few days in her parents’ home helping her mother with cooking and her dad with fixing the shed. She met with childhood friends and school colleagues who had not left town and she asked them each what color was powering their vials and was shocked by how quickly they opened up to her and either showed her an empty vial or a black one or a half empty gray-green one. One of her colleagues who had dropped out of school to put the Bond on began crying as she showed Challenge her half empty half black vial.
Challenge was on the roof with her journal as dusk colored the sky in tangibly warm colors. She was puzzled. By the way she felt towards her family, her old colleagues, her hometown, society and herself. Something had changed and it wasn’t just the crumble pie which for some reason started tasting good again.
She wasn’t ablaze with the fires of rage and rebellion. Instead she saw reality as it was. People were taught to fear the empty vials ending up in a worse state. But some actually made it work like her parents. She was pleased to see a bit of purple starting to form in their vials although black was still there. Not everyone was miserable. And she felt a quiet, acknowledging sadness toward those who suffered in their cages. The more she thought about it the more of Cesar’s stories came to her mind. At this point she could reflect back on his wisdom without crying anymore. And she started seeing similarities and she started understanding some of the metaphors she had been blind to.
Challenge flipped her journal to an empty page and began drawing. By the time she was done it was dark and her father was calling to her to come inside. Challenge looked at her creation once she got back inside under better lighting and saw the comic that had poured out of her. It was different than her usuals. It was deeper. She suddenly craved to draw again and she missed her apartment and balcony.
Challenge left after a few more days to go back to the city. She was carrying several days’ worth of crumble pie, more photos and 10 more vials from her parents. She hadn’t seen the vials, but she knew they had snuck them in there and she was glad they did regardless of what would happen to them.
When she got home the place was just as she had left it but with a layer of dust on it. She immediately opened all the windows and cleaned the place up. At night she opened her suitcase and found 10 orange vials glowing serenely. She placed them on the desk next to the others which were mostly gray-orange although a few of them were a very light shade of orange. She took her last vial from the backpack and looked at it. It was mostly pink with some orange and a thin stripe of white. Challenge was not surprised by this. She placed it on the desk next to the others, read a bit more psychology before bed and then went to sleep.
The next days Challenge refined the comic draft she had drawn during her visit and pitched it to her publishing house. The agents scratched their heads. A few weren’t certain. Two didn’t like it and one got up and went out of the room. Challenge didn’t push them but instead started hatching a plan to self publish her story. She was at her favorite cafe re-reading one of the books on the forms of love when the agent who had exited the room approached her. She was surprised to see her.
“Hello Challenge. May I join you?” she said.
“Of course, Cambra. Have a seat.” Challenge replied and set her book aside.
Cambra sat down.
“Listen.” she said leaning forward over the table. “About the story you pitched yesterday… Where did you come up with that?”
“Look at the ads outside on all the buildings. They’re all obsessed with red vials and the Bond and they all tell you to fear empty vials.” Challenge said calmly. “I disagree and I believe there is a better way. There are other types of love which can fuel our lives. Empty vials won’t kill anyone and the Bond isn’t mandatory. That’s what my story is about.”
Cambra stared at her.
“May I see your vial, Challenge?” Cambra said.
Challenge pulled her vial out of her pocket and held it for Cambra to see. It was full and colored in pink, orange and white. Cambra’s eyes widened. She slowly reached into her pocket and pulled out a vial. She placed it on the table before Challenge. More than half of it was empty and the remaining filling was gray-orange with black. Challenge saddened and placed her own glowing vial on the table touching Cambra’s vial.
Cambra buried her face in her hands and began to cry.
“I just went through a break last month.” she sobbed. “I thought I could live without him but now it’s getting to me. I also doubted the ads but I can’t take it anymore. And your story yesterday… I had to go because I couldn’t keep my tears any longer.”
Challenge reached across the table and touched Cambra’s arm. She waited and after a while Cambra place her hand over Challenge’s, nodded and smiled through her tears.
“There are frauds out there claiming they have the cure but their vials are empty. I’ve seen them. But your story… it gives me hope.” Cambra sobbed. “I’d like to fund it, Challenge. Would you like to team up with me?”
Challenge smiled.
“How about a nice mug of cocoa first and a few more stories?” Challenge asked.
By the time Challenge and Cambra parted ways for the night, both their vials had gotten a little stripe of glowing geen.
PART 3
Challenge’s first comic on the truth of love and vials sold many copies in the first few days since her fans wanted to see what she’d been brewing for the past months. But then sales quickly died out. Reviews and publicity was mixed. Some fans declared themselves profoundly disappointed and left. A few openly insulted her. Some said they liked it and very few sent her private messages saying it was eye opening and that it had changed their lives.
“Good.” Challenge said to herself. “It got people talking.”
However even those discussions soon ran dry. Challenge was not discouraged. She knew she had gotten some people’s attention and that maybe others were still trying to make up their mind about the whole topic.
Challenge kept drawing and writing. Her vials shone pink and white powerfully backed up by green and orange. She was riding momentum and creativity and her mind was peaceful. She replied to all who wrote to her about the topic. She thanked the haters for their input and shared more of her insight with her remaining fans who sometimes said it had made them think or sometimes asked for help since they’ve been in this dilemma for a long time without a solution.
Cambra was also not discouraged and predicted this showed the signs of a disruptive patterns so she kept publishing Challenge’s books. Her second story on love came out and it had a bit of sales although nothing consistent. This time she got more private messages than publicity and Challenge replied to them all.
One day Cambra suggested they rent the nearby bookstore and invite the fans who had written to Challenge in private and that they should have an open conversation. Challenge agreed to this and two months from then she found herself in the self help section of Cesar’s bookstore with a group of 20 people she had never seen before but who felt like her close friends.
The evening was fantastic. Challenge was amazed that these strangers quickly opened up and showed their vials and shared their stories and asked for help. Challenge wasn’t the only one answering questions. Different people chimed in to add their own experience to her answer and address the question someone had asked or a problem they had raised.
These sessions then became regular and after some time and more stories published, the group had grown to around 100 people and Cambra had to duplicate the sessions to smaller groups. Challenge was thrilled and she noticed the white in her vials was glowing brighter than in the past.
Sessions turned into the first Vials conference which caught the news’ eye. This got more people talking publicly and Challenge soon found herself answering questions and discussing her novels and views on love on the radio and various podcasts.
Sales of her books and art now had a small but constant growth showing little spikes when she released a new book or after speaking on a particularly influential show. Private messages were also slowly increasing and they were coming from new fans seeking help or from old fans sharing stories from their journeys. Challenge found it more difficult to reply to all of them but she persevered. She valued every single letter and would not let any call for help go without answer. She knew all too well what it was like to have empty vials or to yearn for a friend.
With each passing year society slowly changed its views on the Bond and the types of love. People other than Challenge started speaking up about their own experiences and doubts about the old views. Others started writing books with their own add-ons to Challenge’s original provocation. Graffiti started showing up on some of the Bond and red love ad boards either changing the color in the vial from red to green or drawing a big X over the Bond. There was a mild decrease in the number of Bonds made each year and an increase in the number of Breaks. The number of Breaks began to drop after a while though. More meetups started popping around the city where groups would gather to support each other while going through a Break. More blog posts appeared with people talking about the different colors of love they have experienced through their lives. A few started interviewing people and gathering their stories then publishing books with collections of these stories. And the 95th percentile of happiness of the city increased a little.
By this point Challenge had bought her own house in a quiet neighborhood of the city and turned the first floor into a bookstore where she often hosted talks about types and forms of love. Her bookstore was called “Book Love” and the logo was a book in the process of squeezing itself into a love vial. She had the most complete collection of books on Vials, types and forms of love. She would even travel to remote bookstores around the world specifically to look for more lore on Vials. The old bookstore which had the impressive collection of books on Vials had closed down and Challenge had bought all of its Vials books.
She was still answering mail from her fans but she had stopped writing new stories. She was working on a map now - one which guided the reader through the known types and forms of love but which also challenged them to inquire themselves because there was always the possibility that the map did not fully resonate with them and that they should listen to themselves as the source of truth and add their path to the map.
One rainy day, Challenge was arranging a newly arrived batch of books near the glass entrance door in her bookstore when she saw a wet kitten pawing at the door. She opened the door and the kitten came in.
“Challenge!” it said in a high pitched voice.
Challenge stared at it frozen.
“I believe you knew me as Constantin.” it said and waited for a reaction. “No? Ah wait that was the life before that. I was called Cesar at that time. Remember me?”
“Cesar...?” Challenge kneeled to get closer to the kitten.
“Yes! Last I saw you, you were on a quest to find an alternative to happiness which didn’t involve the Bond!” the kitten jumped with joy. “And then I got hit by a bus. Or was that the life before...”
“Cesar!” Challenge cried and snatched the kitten and hugged it.
The kitten purred awkwardly, coughed and then purred smoothly.
“Fine I’ll go by Cesar this life, too since I haven’t been named yet.” it said.
“I missed you so much!” Challenge said.
“I missed you, too my friend.” Cesar said.
“Did that kitten talk?” someone said.
Challenge opened her eyes and saw that a few bookstore customers have gathered around her and Cesar.
“Could you hear him?” Challenge asked them.
“Yes. It said it got hit by a bus in another life.” a boy said.
“Yeah, I heard him talk, too.” said an older woman.
Cesar looked at them.
“You can all hear me?!” he squeaked and pressed his front paws into his cheeks smiling broadly.
A few minutes later Challenge came down into her bookstore with food for her new bookstore kitten who was perched on the top shelf of one of the bookcases holding the Vials collection reading a book on geometry.
“I see you’ve changed your reading list.” Challenge said and placed the bowl on the shelf.
“Last life was short unfortunately. I was born in Japan as a temple cat and one of the monks taught me geometry while he was trying to solve the problems on the walls. That was before that tiger ate me. So I never got to finish my training.” Cesar said.
“You were born in Japan?” Challenge asked.
“Yes. Last life. We met in my life before the one in Japan. And in this one I was born a couple of months ago in a dumpster not far from here.” he said.
“How did you find me?” Challenge said.
“I found a poster with your collection of stories and it had this address on it.” Cesar said. “I waited to be strong enough to run before dashing here.”
There was a pause in which they smiled at each other.
“You’ve come a long way.” Cesar said.
“I’ve got loads to tell you.” Challenge said. “Also, I’d like to listen to the stories of your past lives and turn them into a graphic novel. You would be my co-author of course.”
“Why, I would be delighted.” Cesar said.
Challenge did indeed go on to draw Cesar’s stories and they were greatly appreciated by her fans. Now, people who came in the bookstore also spoke with Cesar and asked for his autograph on their copies. Many of them could hear him speak and Cesar was overjoyed he could speak with more people. He soon joined Challenge’s book club on the topic of Vials since he could be heard.
One day Challenge received a letter from a young inventor who had recently discovered one of Challenge’s books on the forms of love and how the current vials cannot display them. He was enthralled both by the topic and the challenge of the incomplete vials. He proposed a new vial design which could show more forms of love but he would need more information since he wasn’t an expert on the topic. Challenge was thrilled by this and for the next months she worked with him and tested his vials.
They finally came with a prototype which could show the 8 types of love plus a few forms such as ambition, hope and dream and in addition, the vial’s head would glow in a pulsing pattern the color which was being yearned if any. So for someone experiencing homesickness it would glow orange since they are yearning for familiarity. For someone feeling lonely it would pulse green since they seek companionship. Challenge had recently finished her map of love and she bundled it with the new vial and started selling it in her bookstore.
It sold like hot bread and for a while demand was higher than production. Soon, the new vial was being discussed on the radio and on the news. Opinions varied wildly in the beginning and it started drawing the attention of scientists who began experimenting with the vials and writing papers on it even though love was not considered a science. A company partnered with Book Love to mass produce the vial and release it globally together with Challenge’s books to see what other cultures thought of it.
It ended up shaking many societies worldwide over the course of a few years, especially the ones in which the Bond played a crucial role in an individual’s life. Challenge was flooded with letters from all over the world and sometimes she needed to hire a translator. She began traveling to other countries to speak about her views and learn the local stories and advise. She discovered that in many other countries, her name had been translated to the word “challenge” in the local language on the covers of her books.
Challenge was sitting in her roof garden one day with Cesar sleeping in the strawberry bushes contemplating her vials. They had not changed much since she started her efforts. They were still pink, white, green and orange and she felt content. Sometimes she wondered what red, yellow and purple felt like. But as far as her journey to find happiness without the Bond went she considered it a success.