Capsules

In a not so distant future, humans must take pharmaceuticals to feel any emotion at all. This is the story about two people who have been prescribed to take the next step in their relationship. In a not so distant future, humans must take pharmaceuticals to feel any emotion at all. Every morning, individuals wake up and begin their days by scanning their fingerprint in order to accurately measure the necessary personalized dosage levels of happiness, courage, anxiety, fear, motivation, and so on. We find ourselves with Claire and Owen, a seemingly happy couple who want to take the next step in their relationship by prescribing themselves the ultimate emotion: Love. In this dystopian future, partners must have their compatibility assessed in order to confirm that the prescriptions will work to their fullest potential. At the start, the pills work exactly as expected for Claire and Owen—they couldn’t be more in love with each other. But as their relationship advances, Claire begins to realize the effects are fading for her alone. She attempts to consume more and more of this powerful emotion, but is only becoming less and less affected by her partner. Owen, meanwhile, could not be more in love. She goes back to the pharmacy to ask what could be going wrong, but to no avail. When she ultimately decides to stop taking the pills, Owen–so overwhelmed by his unreciprocated love–tries to force her to do so. She fights back, and in doing so, gains a new understanding of the power of love—a power that existed long before it was packaged into capsules.