Agape.

Agape.

In the ancient world, the Greeks had four words for love.

Philia. The love between equals. Brotherly love.

Storge. A familial love- especially that shared between parents and children.

Eros. Sensual love.

Agape. A principled love- complete and dynamic. Wide open. In a state of wonder.

Today, these forms of love are forgotten. All that is left is a hollow representation of them. The exoskeleton of a concept so powerful that it caused and ended all that was our world. And now it has crumbled with it. Philia has lost its loyalty. It has turned to tolerant independence. Storge is now without its respect and virtue. It is a means to survive. Eros is devoid of romance. It is appetite. Agape, though, has been erased entirely. It is fiction.

My parents did not believe this, though. They believed that agape was too powerful to be erased. It could be neglected, starved, ignored, but it would always simply be.

That’s how I got my name. Agape. In a world of give and take more, of loneliness masked as independence, they never wanted me to callus under the chafing of cruelty or injustice. They wanted me to keep giving. They wanted me to love.

…

Agape walked quickly down the crumbling asphalt streets, her eyes darting nervously across her line of sight. There was trash all over the road, and rats scattered as she passed. A scrawny cat noticed and lifted its head, ready for dinner. She hurried on.

“In and out,” she whispered to herself.

There was shouting from the building she was passing, and a man stomped out, yelling. She gasped, narrowly missing him. “God I hate the city.” The man continued yelling, and someone from inside shouted back, throwing things. She heard clanging and even glass shattering, but she didn’t look behind her. It was another two blocks to the pharmacy. She quickened her pace. In and out.

When she came to the pharmacy, she pushed the door open and stepped quickly inside. “Hello. How may I assist you?” asked a mechanical voice. She looked around and noticed in the dim light that a bot was standing behind the counter. Its LED eyes blinked at her. She was quiet, surprised as she always was when she was greeted by a machine. “How may I assist you?” it repeated, this time waving its arm.

“Excuse me,” she replied. She sighed, shaking her head at her own silliness. At her humanity. As if it cares about manners. “I’m here to pick up some medication.”

“What name is your order under?”

“Raza Eadrom.”

“Retrieving your order number.” Agape waited, watching as the lifeless eyes blinked. “Order 62516B Raza Eadrom located. One moment please.” The bot wizzed into the back room and left her alone with the hum of the fluorescent lights. The door jingled loudly in the silence and she turned. A young man entered, his hair disheveled and his clothes messy. He met her eye, his burrowing gaze unsettling. The light on his tech glasses lit up. She looked away and began twirling her locket. He didn’t look away until the bot reentered.

“Raza Eadrom, your total is 142.50. Please pay here.” The bot’s arm raised and a flap pulled back, exposing an input slot for cash cards.

“Alright,” she answered, pulling her wallet out of the inside pocket of her jacket.

“Hello. How may I assist you?” The bot asked the boy.

“Order for Aatos Nadir.”

She approached the robot and inserted the card.

“Searching.” The robot blinked. “Aatos Nadir. Your account is in a delinquent status. Please pay in full first.”

The light on the reader turned green and she withdrew the card, sliding it back in her wallet.

The boy hesitated. “I don’t have enough.”

Agape looked back at him with wide eyes and hurriedly zipped up her jacket again.

“Aatos Nadir, please pay in full or leave.”

She snatched up her bag and tried to sneak out as quickly as she could.

“But if I don’t get insulin I’ll die!” he shouted at the robot.

Agape stopped, her hand on the door, and turned back to watch. Her eyes moved over the young man again. He didn’t look to be much younger than her- maybe eighteen or nineteen. Like everyone else in the city, he was dressed in dark, dirty clothes. He scowled, and he wore tech glasses. His hands shivered angrily as he listened to the robot’s mechanical response. But this was the first time she had seen someone in the city cry.

“Please leave. Please leave,” the robot repeated. Finally he turned, ready to give up. Agape blocked the door. He raised his hand to push her out of the way.

“Wait!” she exclaimed. He paused. “Just- just wait.”

Agape brushed past him and approached the counter. She could feel him watching her.

The robot faced her. “Hello. How may I assist you?”

Agape sighed. “An order for Aatos Na-” she turned back to look at the man again.

“Nadir,” he finished for her, his face incredulous.

The robot blinked. “Searching.” She waited. “Aatos Nadir. Your account is in delinquent status. Please pay in full first.”

“Ok. How much is the total?”

“The amount due is 952.83.” She felt like she had been punched in the stomach. No wonder he couldn’t pay it. She looked back at the man, Aatos, again, then back to the bot.

“Alright.” She pulled her wallet back out, then the cash card.

“Thank you Aatos Nadir. One moment please.”

The bot disappeared again. Aatos walked up to the counter and stared blankly ahead. Agape began twisting her locket again, the uneasiness settling in.

He looked at her. “Why…” She glanced quickly at him and then away again. He cleared his throat. “Why did you do that?”

Agape stopped twisting her locket. The necklace chain was tight around her finger. She looked up. “I couldn’t let you die.”

The robot returned. “Aatos Nadir. Your order is ready.” Agape took this moment to slip out. She hurried out the door and down the street, but it was only a moment before she heard the jingle of the pharmacy door and the pounding of footsteps running up behind her. Her heartbeat raced, and she turned quickly to face him.

“What do you want?”

“I-” he stammered, surprised. “Well, thank you.”

It was Agape’s turn at astonishment. “You’re welcome.” She looked at the floor, then back at him. “I have to go.”

“Wait!” he exclaimed, reaching out for her arm. She looked at him, startled. “I- uh-”

“Yes?”

“Why don’t you have tech glasses?”

She raised her eyebrows. “That’s what this is about?”

He straightened up a bit. “The face scan has shown me your name. Agape Eadrom. What kind of name is that anyway? And your profile in the database is blank. You have no personal interests, no posts, not even a match-code. What even are you?”

“What am I?” she asked. He nodded. “I’m human.” She turned to walk away, but he kept following.

“Obviously. But you’re not from here.”

“Yes I am.”

“You don’t live in the city.”

“True.”

“Why not? Where do you live?” The unsettling feeling was growing.

“Outside of the city.”

He groaned. “Yes, I know. There aren’t people like you in the city.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. There aren’t. Anyone else would have just left.”

She quickened her pace, but he matched it. “That’s not how I was raised.”

“Raised?”

“Yes, you know. Taught.”

“By the bots?”

She stopped so suddenly that he nearly ran her over. “By my parents,” she replied, dumbfounded at his question.

His expression of shock grew. “Your parents?”

“Yeah. You’ve got them, too.”

“Technically yes, but not really. I don’t know my father. My mother isn’t around. They matched is all. She had a bot sitter. But that’s how it is for everyone here.”

Agape thought for a moment. Was this really what things had come to? “Well no wonder everyone seems like they lost their minds.”

“Why are you here? In the city?”

“Same as you. For medicine. Which reminds me-”

“For you?”

“For my sister.” She took a deep breath. “I need to get back home.”

He nodded. Agape turned to leave, but something made her hesitate again. She looked back at Aatos. He hadn’t moved. He was twisting the bag, watching the ground. Somehow she knew he had nowhere to go.

She sighed. “It means ‘love’.”

He looked up. “What?”

“My name. Agape. It means ‘love’ in Greek. Specifically, it means 'love' to all and because of principle. Not because of an existing relationship or gain.”

“Is that why you have that heart on your necklace?”

She looked down at the chain that was coiled tightly around her finger and the tiny locket that hung on it and nodded. “Yes, yes it is.” Agape sighed and then looked back up at him. “Where are you going to sleep tonight?” He was silent. “Come on, now. Answer me.”

“There’s an overhang over by the-”

Agape groaned. “Nope.” She reached for his arm and pulled him along. “You’re coming with me.”

“But-”

“But nothing. You’ll have a proper roof and dinner to eat.”

“Dinner?” Something in his voice let her know it had been a while since he’d had a good one.

“Yes. Now come on.” She dropped his arm and kept walking. He matched her pace.

They walked quickly and in silence until they reached the outskirts of the city. Only then would she allow herself to relax. She took a deep breath; her shoulders dropped and her pace slowed.

“Thank God.”

“You really hate the city.”

“Don’t you?”

“It’s all I’ve ever known.”

“It disgusts me.”

“Why?”

She glanced at him, then back to the crumbling road and the grass that grew tall at its edge. “Progress. That’s what they called it. And in the advancement of infrastructure came the degradation of society. In the automation of labor came the loss of humanity. All is lost.”

“You’re not making a lot of sense.”

“Noone trusts anyone anymore. And everyone thinks they can do things on their own. But we can’t you know?” She looked up and they locked eyes. “We like to think we don’t need any help, but we need each other to survive. And I know that people have gotten fed up with the corruption and the economic meltdowns and the environmental crisis, but after the war they took it a step too far. It was good to clean house, but the day they decided to automate everything was the day we lost humanity.”

“Humanity? There are plenty of humans. That’s part of the problem.”

“Humanity doesn’t just mean ‘human’, Aatos.”

He inhaled sharply at the sound of his name. “What is humanity?” he asked.

She sighed and looked away. “I’m sorry you have to ask.” The light was beginning to fade from the sky. “You’ll like my parents.”

“And what are their names? Flower Power and Hippie Love?”

Agape laughed. “No, but they mean something nice, too.” The grass beside the road was beginning to look golden in the setting sun. “But the thing you’ll like best about them is that they aren’t cool at all.”

“Why would that make me like them?”

“People today are so focused on being cool, they forget what it means to be beautiful. Truly beautiful- within. But they haven’t. They are truly beautiful.”

Aatos looked at her from the corner of his eye. “Are we far?”

“No,” she replied. “It’s just over that hill there.”

He took a deep breath. “Thank you.”

Agape smiled. “Welcome to the family.”

He wanted to ask her what that meant, but somehow he already knew her reply. I’m sorry you have to ask.

“It means,” she said softly, as if already knowing his thoughts, “that you don’t have to be alone anymore.”