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Chapter One

"The erous sicknesses are those that make us believe we are well"

--Proverb 42, The Book of Shhh

It has been sixty-four years since the president and the Consortium identified love as a disease, and forty-three since the scientists perfected a cure Everyone else in my family has had the procedure already My older sister, Rachel, has been disease free for nine years now

She’s been safe fro, she says she can’t even remember its symptoms I’m scheduled to have my procedure in exactly ninety-five days, on September 3

My birthday

Many people are afraid of the procedure Some people even resist But I’m not afraid I can’t wait I would have it done tohteen, sometimes a little older, before the scientists will cure you Otherwise the procedure won’t work correctly: People end up with brain dae, partial paralysis, blindness, or worse

I don’t like to think that I’hinspoiled, like sour milk Ittantru their nails on the pave spit

And of course it reminds me of my mother

After the procedure I will be happy and safe forever

That’s what everybody says, the scientists and my sister and Aunt Carol I will have the procedure and then I’ll be paired with a boy the evaluators choose for etIn the under a white canopy with flowers inhands with someone, but whenever I turn to look at hi focus, and I can’t make out any features But his hands are cool and dry, andsteadily in my chest--and in my dream I knoill always beat out that sao faster, just womp, womp, womp, until I’m dead

Safe, and free froood as they are now In school we learned that in the old days, the dark days, people didn’t realize how deadly a disease love was For a long ti to be celebrated and pursued Of course that’s one of the reasons it’s so dangerous: It affects your mind so that you cannot think clearly, or(That’s symptom number twelve, listed in the amor deliria nervosa section of the twelfth edition of The Safety, Health, and Happiness Handbook, or The Book of Shhh, as we call it) Instead people back then named other diseases--stress, heart disease, anxiety, depression, hypertension, inso that these were, in fact, only symptoms that in the majority of cases could be traced back to the effects of amor deliria nervosa

Of course we aren’t yet totally free from the deliria in the United States Until the procedure has been perfected, until it has been hteens, ill never be totally protected It stillus I’ve seen countless uncureds dragged to their procedures, so racked and ravaged by love that they would rather tear their eyes out, or try to impale themselves on the barbed-wire fences outside of the laboratories, than be without it

Several years ago on the day of her procedure, one girl ed to slip from her restraints and find her way to the laboratory roof She dropped quickly, without screae of the dead girl’s face on television to reers of the deliria Her eyes were open and her neck isted at an unnatural angle, but froht otherwise think she had lain down to take a nap

Surprisingly, there was very little blood--just a small dark trickle at the corners of her mouth

Ninety-five days, and then I’ll be safe I’m nervous, of course I wonder whether the procedure will hurt I want to get it over with It’s hard to be patient

It’s hard not to be afraid while I’h so far the deliria hasn’t touched me yet

Still, I worry They say that in the old days, love drove people to h The Book of Shhh also tells stories of those who died because of love lost or never found, which is what terrifies s: It kills you both when you have it and when you don’t

Chapter Two

"We ainst the Disease; the health of our nation, our people, our failance"

--"Basic Health Measures," The Safety, Health, and Happiness Handbook, 12th edition