The Distributional Analysis of Love

The anomaly began, as most catastrophic systemic failures do, on a Tuesday.

In the meticulously zoned, aggressively mundane city of Oakhaven, the emotional barometric pressure has suddenly bottomed out. High schools are silent and unnervingly civilized. The DMV is running with terrifying efficiency. No one is angry, no one is anxious, and no one cares - it's the "Heat Death of the Soul" arriving on a Tuesday afternoon.

The city's emotional energy, it turns out, hasn't vanished - it has pooled. Every forgotten longing, petty rage, and unrequited infatuation has slid down the gutters of consciousness and accumulated in the municipal fountain, which is now glowing amber and humming with the deafening chord of "pure belonging". If it overflows, Oakhaven will drown in a sticky, concentrated tidal wave of The Truth.

The Mayor's office needs a fix, and they've assembled the only team desperate enough to take the case:

• Dr. Noam Levin, the cranky data scientist who measures the specific weight of awkward silences.
• Yael Sason, the psychologist who views emotions as airborne pathogens.
• Father Rafael, the priest who finds his faith unnervingly light after the devil moves out.
• Ayelet, the nine-year-old emotional diviner who can feel the world too loudly.