Until recently, we regarded love as supernatural. We were willing

Host: The museum was closing for the night. Its halls, once echoing with the shuffle of curious footsteps, now breathed only silence and dust. The final light from the skylight dripped through like honey, catching the glint of glass cases — fossils, sculptures, and behind one panel, a display of human hearts: diagrams, cross-sections, crimson replicas of the organ that poets and scientists had long fought to claim.

Jeeny stood before that display, her reflection doubled in the glass — part woman, part ghost of curiosity. Jack approached from behind, his hands buried in his coat pockets, his eyes cool, analytical, and alive with restrained skepticism.

They were standing before a quote printed in delicate white letters on the wall:

“Until recently, we regarded love as supernatural. We were willing to study the brain chemistry of fear and depression and anger but not love.” — Helen Fisher.

The words hung in the air — half confession, half accusation.

Jeeny: “She’s right, you know. We feared studying love — like it was a sacred flame that would vanish if we touched it. We dissected fear, we mapped sorrow, but love? We treated it like magic.”

Jack: “Because it was magic, Jeeny. Or at least, people wanted it to be. Once you start calling love a chemical reaction, it loses its poetry.”

Host: The light shifted slightly as a janitor turned off a corridor lamp. A faint hum filled the air — the museum’s machines settling into their mechanical heartbeat.

Jeeny: “Maybe poetry can survive truth. Maybe love doesn’t lose its magic when we understand it — maybe it gains depth. Fisher studied dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin — but she didn’t destroy love. She proved it’s in our wiring, our blood, our survival.”

Jack: “That’s exactly the problem. If love is just chemicals, then it’s no different than addiction. A predictable loop of craving, reward, withdrawal. You don’t fall in love, you just react. That makes us less human, not more.”

Jeeny: “Or maybe it makes us honest. If love is a biological addiction, then at least it explains why we keep returning to it — even after heartbreak, even after reason tells us not to. Isn’t that what makes it sacred? That it’s coded into us?”

Jack: scoffing slightly “Sacred addiction — that’s a contradiction if I’ve ever heard one.”

Jeeny: “Not if you’ve ever loved.”

Host: The room seemed to tilt slightly in the dim light — the shadows stretching longer, curling like the veins in the heart diagrams behind them. Jeeny’s voice grew softer, more deliberate.

Jeeny: “Helen Fisher once said she could scan a brain and tell if someone was in love. Imagine that — seeing devotion light up like a constellation inside the skull. Isn’t that beautiful?”

Jack: “It’s invasive. It takes the mystery out of the one thing that made being human unpredictable. If you can measure love, you can manipulate it. What happens when governments, companies, scientists start engineering affection? We already sell it in movies and songs — next we’ll synthesize it.”

Jeeny: “Maybe love doesn’t need to fear understanding. Maybe what’s dangerous isn’t the knowledge, but how we use it. We study fear, but that doesn’t mean we worship fear. We study love so we can see it clearer — not cheaper.”

Jack: “You’re assuming people want to understand love. They don’t. They want to feel it, lose control, dissolve in it. Dissection kills wonder.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. Dissection clarifies wonder. When you understand how lightning works, it doesn’t make it less beautiful — it just stops you from thinking the gods are angry.”

Host: A faint rumble of thunder echoed outside, as if the world had chosen to punctuate her words. Jack’s lips curled into a reluctant smile.

Jack: “You’re poetic tonight.”

Jeeny: “Maybe because love deserves poetry, even when it’s made of neurons and hormones.”

Jack: “You’re talking about love like it’s both a poem and a lab report.”

Jeeny: “It is. It’s chemistry written in verse.”

Host: A streak of lightning flashed across the skylight, illuminating their faces — his sharp, angular skepticism against her luminous conviction.

Jack: “Then tell me, poet — if love is chemistry, why does it destroy some people? Why does it leave others empty after it fades? You don’t see people dying of dopamine deficiency after a breakup.”

Jeeny: “Because it’s more than chemistry. It’s chemistry plus memory. Love doesn’t live in the bloodstream alone; it lives in the stories we attach to it. When the chemicals fade, the memories remain — that’s what hurts. The ghost of meaning.”

Jack: “So now you’re saying love is an illusion we build over a biological impulse.”

Jeeny: “No, I’m saying love is the bridge between biology and meaning. The body gives us the spark, but we’re the ones who name the fire.”

Host: The rain began to pour harder now, tapping against the skylight like the rhythm of a restless pulse. The museum lights dimmed to their final glow. Somewhere, a guard’s footsteps echoed — slow, methodical, fading.

Jack: “You think that makes it noble? That we’re just organisms writing sonnets about our instincts?”

Jeeny: “Yes. That’s exactly what makes it noble. We take something primal and make it eternal. We turn a neurotransmitter into a promise.”

Jack: “A promise that always breaks.”

Jeeny: “And yet we keep making it. That’s how I know love isn’t just chemistry. If it were, we’d have evolved out of it by now.”

Host: She stepped closer to the glass display, pressing her palm against it. The reflection of the human heart glowed faintly beneath her hand — artificial yet oddly alive.

Jeeny: “Fear keeps us alive. Anger protects us. Depression humbles us. But love — love makes us human. It’s the only emotion that asks us to give more than we take.”

Jack: “And still, we lose ourselves in it.”

Jeeny: “Maybe losing yourself is the only way to find what’s real.”

Host: A long silence. The storm outside softened to drizzle. Jack moved closer, his reflection merging with hers on the glass — two faces, one heart between them.

Jack: “You know, Fisher said she could see love fade too. She scanned couples — watched their brains change as passion turned to friendship, then indifference. She saw love die under an MRI.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s not death — maybe it’s evolution. Love changes form. It starts as fire, ends as light.”

Jack: quietly “And sometimes it ends as smoke.”

Jeeny: “Even smoke remembers the flame.”

Host: The camera would pull back then — the two silhouettes framed by the display, the word LOVE glowing faintly above their heads. The museum alarm clicked softly, signaling closing time. Neither moved.

Jeeny turned to him, her voice barely above a whisper.

Jeeny: “Maybe what we fear most isn’t losing love. Maybe it’s understanding it — because once we do, we can’t hide behind the mystery anymore.”

Jack: “And mystery is all that keeps us dreaming.”

Jeeny: “Then let’s keep dreaming — just with open eyes.”

Host: The lights faded one by one, until only the glow from the glass remained — the heart illuminated in quiet defiance of the dark.

Outside, the rain stopped. The air hung clean and still.

And Helen Fisher’s words lingered like an echo in the empty hall:

“Until recently, we regarded love as supernatural. We were willing to study the brain chemistry of fear and depression and anger but not love.”

Host: Perhaps tonight, two minds — one rational, one reverent — had done just that. They had studied love. Not to diminish it, but to finally understand why, despite its pain, we never stop chasing its fire.

And as the camera faded out, the final light pulsed softly on the glass heart — beating still, both science and soul.