LOVE [burns]

"Our togetherness will be a beacon of light for others; an example to emulate in their lives," she said. Her name is Promise, and she has asked Soupy to find her...because love is dying. Before she left, she gave him some advice: "You're going to fail at finding me over and over again. This task I've given you, it's a numbers game, a game of volume. Only by accumulated experience will you eventually figure out who I am and where to find me. It's also a game of wisdom, because you must learn at least one thing from every person you meet." And she is right. When he thought about his neighborhood, his parents, his family, friends, practically every one had divorced or dealt with troubling relationships--no one had taught us about love. "We are meant to teach them," she said, and then she disappeared. Soupy has been given the first assignment of his life's homework, and it's a grammar test: to better understand himself. There's no cheat sheet or notes for this homework, no map to the destination, no footprints to follow down a path...no path, actually, and no mentors to lean on. He has to make his own way, and it's going to suck. But the reward is Promise. When he finds her he will have found success, and that success is nothing more and nothing less than True Love-two words for the greatest connection the world has ever known, and now needs more than ever. Along the way, Soupy Heller learns a lot about himself. In fact, he learns that his last name comes from an ancient ability for his ancestors to heal. As Grandma Heller once told him, "Our ability to heal doesn't come from a magical elixir or a pill of any color. Hellers carry only what can be found on or within their person: our ears, eyes, and experience." He learns that anything good in the world must be earned; that's why we haven't seen true love in hundreds of years. Anything truly great must truly be earned, but the concept of earning has been lost. As children, we can get a movie, song, or a toy instantly. No longer must we save up the money or sit poised with one finger on "Play" and one finger on "Record" waiting impatiently for our favorite song on the radio. If we're hungry, we have a multitude of options that can be retrieved or delivered at a whim. When we want attention or conversation, we can find it online, twenty-four hours a day. We make "friends" in minutes through any number of social networks. But these are just a collection of nouns. Without focusing on the connections between them, the verbs, we have little to show for our pile of persons, places, and things. And it's in those connections that the Universe bares itself, and the fundamental elements of understanding one's self and one's "opportunity" in the world are revealed. Soupy fails a lot before Promise returns--fights and flights, guns and games, candles and catastrophes, diamonds and disasters, sex and sacrifice--but return she does, and that's when things really spin out of control.