The Emotion Trade

1. Tthe Introduction

In a world where emotions were synthesized, packaged and sold as commodities, 13-year-old Alia had never experienced the pure, unbridled joy of a child’s laughter or the warmth of a mother’s tender embrace. Born into a life of emotional austerity, her family could barely afford even the cheapest rations of bottled feelings – a fleeting hint of contentment here, a passing relief from sadness there.

The Emotion Traders ruled supreme, their corporations controlling every aspect of the multi-trillion dollar market. Vast manufacturing complexes operated around the clock, chemically engineering and mass-producing carefully measured doses of every imaginable sentiment. Powerful conglomerates monopolized the creation and distribution, ensuring maximum profits.

At the top of the pyramid, the wealthiest elite indulged in the rarest and most exquisitely crafted blends – explosions of profound euphoria, tsunamis of all-consuming desire and passion. Those deemed inferior had to make do with cheap generics, dull and lacking in nuance. The poor simply did without, going for years never feeling anything more than faint echoes of happiness or anger.

From the earliest memories of her childhood, Alia watched with a mix of awe and helpless envy as her more affluent classmates and neighbors experienced vivid explosions of raw emotion. She saw them convulse with the raptures of pure bliss or become consumed by fiery rage, their faces twisted in paroxysms of exaggerated feeling. To young Alia, it seemed like a different plane of existence utterly beyond her grasp.

Trapped in her emotional privation, she spent years fantasizing about what it would be like to burn with the intensity of unfettered passion or soar to dizzying heights of transcendent elation. What ecstasies could a mere taste of genuine happiness bring? The question haunted her, and Alia yearned to know the answer…