Love Trademark

By Arnav Timsina

Arjun’s life was measured in spreadsheets and keystrokes. The rhythmic click-clack of the same keys while entering endless columns of data was the only music in his three-by-four-foot cubicle, tucked inside a cemented fortress of an office that smelled faintly of damp walls and old AC filters. His back had grown slightly bent from leaning toward the monitor all day, his eyes carrying the faint redness of too much screen-time and too little sleep.

Lunch was the only punctuation mark in the monotony. That thirty minutes in the cafeteria was the highlight of his routine. Not for the food, today’s roti and watery aloo-sabzi tasted as uninspired as always, but because it gave him a chance to look at Maya. She sat two tables across, her dupatta slipping off her shoulder as she bent over her plate, a loose strand of hair brushing her cheek. She wasn’t film-star beautiful, but there was a warmth in the way she laughed with her friends, a steadiness in her gaze when she listened, that made her stand out against the gray blur of the office, and a thin gap between her incisors made Arjun admire her more. In a world where even a slight perceived facial imperfection made people conscious about their looks, here was a girl who smiled brighter than anyone else despite what the world labels as perfection.

Arjun never spoke to her beyond the polite “Hi” exchanged at the elevator. He didn’t dare. Just stealing glances between bites of his meal was enough. Enough to make the rest of the afternoon bearable. Enough to convince himself that something beautiful still existed beyond his cubicle walls.

When Maya laughed at a joke from her friend, Arjun looked down quickly, pretending to focus on tearing his roti. A small smile tugged at his lips, though. That laugh was like the bell that announced recess in a school day - sudden, freeing, out of place in the monotony of corporate silence.

When she left, Arjun’s world shrank again. He unlocked his phone, scrolling through reels to fill the empty space she’d left behind. Dogs in sunglasses. A politician shouting. A cringy stand-up set. Then, an ad slipped into his feed, clean fonts against a dark background:

“Find the one your heart deserves. - LuvByte.”

He paused, thumb hovering. The tagline was cheesy, yes, but it poked at something raw inside him. Without overthinking, he tapped Download. Signing up was easy: Name, Email, a few generic questions. Then the inevitable wall of “Terms and Conditions.” Arjun didn’t even glance at it. He just tapped Agree.

The screen blinked. “Analyzing your profile. Please wait.”

A little wheel spun lazily on the screen. He waited. Thirty seconds. A minute. Still nothing.

Bored, Arjun slipped the phone back into his pocket, picked up his empty steel plate, and trudged back toward his cubicle.

The rest of the day passed in the usual blur of numbers and deadlines. Arjun’s screen was filled with cells of data, yet his mind wandered back to that spinning wheel on his phone. 

Analyzing your profile. 

He smirked at the absurdity of it. What was there to analyze? Another corporate cog. Another nobody.

By six, the office had thinned out. Arjun shut down his system, slung his bag across his shoulder, and stepped into the evening air. The city smelled different at dusk - half fried snacks, half dust, and all of it mixed with the reek of exhaustion . Arjun scrolled through the unread texts of WhatsApp as he walked. A coworker had texted in the group: Loan approved! Finally tying the knot this December. Arjun typed ‘Congrats’ and stared at the blinking cursor. A thought crept in uninvited: 

When is it going to be my turn? Will there even be one?

Billboards along the main road seemed to mock him - smiling couples with diamond rings, perfume ads dripping with promise, the eternal lie that a bottle or stone could buy you closeness. Arjun adjusted his earphones, let Spotify shuffle play love songs into his head. Even they sounded like they were teasing him.

A ding interrupted the music. His phone lit up: “Your profile has been analyzed. Our executives will be with you shortly.”

Arjun frowned. Executives? He glanced up. The street had thinned out as he cut through a quieter lane to shave off five minutes from his walk. A dog rummaged in a dustbin. A lone bulb flickered outside a shuttered tea stall.

Then… headlights.

A van screeched to a halt beside him. The side door slid open. Black fabric. Heavy hands. Masked face. A chemical sting filled his nose before he could shout. The phone slipped from his grip, screen cracking against the pavement. 

The last thing he saw was one of the masked men picking up the fallen phone and getting inside the vehicle, before shutting the doors. As he kept losing his consciousness, he saw his own reflection in the dark glass of the van - droopy-eyed, confused, swallowed whole.

—-

Arjun woke to the sound of dripping water. A single bulb hung from a wire above him, swaying gently as if someone had been here before. The room was small, damp, smelling faintly of rust and disinfectant. His wrists were strapped to the arms of a steel chair, ankles bound tight. For a moment he thought it was a dream, until the hollow ache beneath his ribs began to throb again, like someone had carved a cavity inside his chest.

“Who’s there?!” his voice cracked. “Where am I?!”

A figure stepped out of the shadows - tall, neatly dressed, grey suit, silver tie pin, shoes shining despite the dust of the floor. His presence filled the room without raising his voice. He carried a file under one arm, and his expression was neither hostile nor kind. Only practical.

“Arjun,” the man said, matter-of-fact, as if calling for attendance. “Age twenty-six. Bachelor of Commerce. Three years at R&H Finserv, current designation: Data Entry Associate. No major illnesses, no criminal record. Unremarkable in every sense.”

“Who are you?!” Arjun struggled against the straps, heart hammering. “Why have you tied me up? You know people will be looking for me… !”

The man ignored his panic, set the file on a metal table, and straightened his cufflinks before answering. “Dr. Iyer. Head of Analytics, Luvbyte.”

The name jolted Arjun. “Luvbyte? The… the app? I just downloaded it…”

“Yes.” Iyer adjusted his glasses. “You downloaded it.” 

He took out a small device out of his breast pocket. It had a screen, not unlike a phone. Tapped it twice, and turned the screen towards Arjun to show him a familiar document. 

“You signed the agreement. ‘I accept all terms and conditions.’” His tone was bone-dry, like he had repeated this a thousand times to a thousand others. “That contract authorises your participation. Transport, questioning, data collection. Everything you are experiencing now.” Iyer smoothly turned the device off and kept it back inside his breast pocket.

Arjun shook his head violently. “That’s bullshit! Nobody reads those! You can’t just…”

The words died in his throat as the hollow pain under his chest surged. It wasn’t a stab or a burn. It was absence itself, a vacuum where his heart should be. He gasped, choking, chest caving into itself, like the same sensation from a heartbreak except sharper, merciless, artificially induced. He writhed, his breath caught in shallow bursts.

Iyer didn’t flinch. He simply pressed a button on a device on the table, then released it. The pain ebbed slightly, leaving Arjun trembling and drenched in sweat.

“That,” Iyer said calmly, “is a controlled pulse. It simulates the emotional void you people write poetry about. Emptiness. Loss. Hollow chest. We’ve perfected it for compliance. Answer honestly, and you will feel nothing. Resist, and…” He tapped the device once. The implication was clear.

Arjun stared at him, wild-eyed. “Why… why are you doing this?”

Iyer leaned forward, his voice almost bored. “Because, Mr. Arjun, you agreed to it. Now, shall we begin?”

The scrape of a chair leg echoed as Iyer sat across from him, file open, pen balanced between his fingers. No pleasantries. No preamble.

“Describe your ideal partner,” he asked, eyes not lifting from the page.

Arjun spat, “Go to hell.”

Iyer clicked the device. The hollow ache punched through Arjun’s chest again - violent, cavernous. He screamed, trying to twist free, but the straps cut into his skin. Just as suddenly, the pain ebbed.

“Once more,” Iyer said evenly. “Describe your ideal partner.”

Arjun’s breaths came ragged. He wanted to resist, but his body betrayed him. “Not… not fake. Not… plastic.”

“Hmm… Height?”

“What?”

“Height. Weight. Body type.”

Arjun squeezed his eyes shut. “Normal. Not too thin. Not too… obsessed with herself.”

“Not obsessed, noted.” Iyer scribbled quickly. “Do you like women who dominate, or women who submit?”

Arjun jerked against the cuffs. “What the fuck kind of question…”

The hollow pain returned, sharp, clawing through his ribs like hands tearing him apart from the inside. He convulsed, cried out, begged without meaning to. When Iyer finally released the pulse, Arjun sagged in the chair, body limp, throat raw.

“Answer the question.”

“Neither!” he gasped. “I… I just want someone equal. Someone real.”

Iyer looked up for the first time, eyes narrowing slightly. But he did not comment.

The questions kept coming, mechanical, transactional.

“How much would you spend on a first date?” “Would you lie to keep your partner happy?” “Do you prefer a partner with social status? Wealth?” “What is the one thing you want from your partner that you would never admit aloud?”

Each refusal meant another surge of that hollow agony. Each answer wrung out of him like water from a rag.

Finally, Iyer paused. He read Arjun’s last answer twice, then leaned back, studying him with something close to amusement.

“So,” Iyer said slowly, “you want love without the theatre. Without the gifts, the posts, the parades. Just… intimacy. Honesty.” He chuckled, low and humourless. “Do you know how rare that is? Not rare because it’s special. Rare because it’s statistically irrelevant. You’re not a rebel, Mr. Arjun. You’re obsolete.”

Arjun’s eyes flickered, confusion and anger colliding. “Obsolete? What the hell does that even mean?”

Iyer closed the file with a snap. His voice was cold, deliberate. “It means you still believe in love without price tags. Without hashtags. A kind of love we’ve already written out of the script. That’s why you’re here with me. Because you remind us of a story we no longer sell.”

Iyer steepled his fingers and looked at Arjun as if he were studying a lab rat. “You think love is yours, don’t you? Private. Personal. Sacred. That’s the illusion that keeps you breathing.”

Arjun clenched his teeth. “I feel what I feel. No one can manipulate me to feel what I feel.”

A thin smile tugged at Iyer’s lips. “That’s how good we are at our jobs.”

Arjun stared at him with contempt that he could swear he never felt before today against anyone. “Who are you?”

Iyer stared at Arjun, taking a moment of consideration. He turned his hand ever so slightly and checked the time before answering Arjun’s question.

“You intrigue me, Arjun. You and your ways to live in this world. And only because of that I think I can spare some time to indulge in your curiosity.”

Iyer leaned forward, voice flat, calm, each word measured like a surgeon’s incision.

 “Tell me… who told you a diamond ring proves devotion? Who convinced you that flowers express affection, that perfume equals attraction, that love songs mean sincerity? None of it was accidental. All of it was engineered… by us.”

“Luvbyte?” Arjun enquired in disbelief.

“No!” Iyer exclaimed. “Luvbyte is just a new gimmick. Something we never did before. Something which is a bit more interactive. We are a bit up on the food chain, designing the illusion to sell by the industries around the world. Industries like jewelry, fashion, cinema, dating apps, social media… all of them, with all hands on the deck to sell you not just love, Arjun. They sell you proof of love.”

Arjun shook his head violently. “No… I don’t believe you… You don’t know what love is. You might be fooling the world with your… plastic love… But not me.” It almost sounded like he was trying to convince himself, as he looked down.

Iyer chuckled softly. “Ah, yes. You and your ‘honorable love.’ Intimacy without an audience. Honesty without transaction. Do you know what that makes you?”

Arjun looked straight at him.

“Statistically irrelevant.” Iyer let the words linger, cruel and deliberate. “You’re not a rebel, Arjun. You’re a ghost. A remnant of an old narrative we’ve long since retired. We keep you around, like we keep fossils in a museum. Decorative. Obsolete.”

Arjun’s breath faltered. He whispered, “Why… Why do all this?”

“Because it works.” Iyer’s tone didn’t rise; it flattened, heavy as granite. “Love is the only emotion that branches into every other: joy, jealousy, pride, despair, hope. Control love, and you control all of them. And at the root of it…” He tapped the table with his pen. “... love guarantees breeding. More couples, more weddings, more children. More children mean more consumers, more data, more money. Money builds nations, topples governments, launches rockets, digs deeper into the marrow of the universe. Love is the coal that keeps the furnace of civilization burning. Without it, the machine stops.”

Arjun stared, stricken. “You… you can’t manipulate something so real. You can’t.”

Iyer leaned back, amused at the defiance. “Reality, Mr. Arjun, is whatever people consent to believe. And when it comes to your ‘honor,’ even that was seeded by us. Once upon a time, that narrative worked - ‘true love,’ ‘soulmates,’ ‘one man, one woman forever.’ But markets evolve. Now the world buys swipes, likes, hashtags, status updates. You are the glitch in our system. And glitches… amuse me.”

The silence in the room grew heavy, broken only by the sound of Iyer ruffling around his trousers. He takes out a small cylindrical spraying canister, and a mask which he used to cover his nose and mouth.

Arjun’s lips trembled, his eyes wide with the weight of futility. His voice cracked with shallow and trembling breaths. “You… you’re monsters.” he said ignoring Iyer’s ominous preparation.

Iyer smirked faintly, almost bored. “No. Monsters are loud. We are efficient.”

He stepped closer. “You are an honorable man, Arjun. That’s why this hurts you more than most. But don’t worry - we’ll take care of you. You’ll live a happy life. You’ll get your fairy tale. We’ll even give her to you.”

The canister hissed softly in his grip as it sprayed a cloud of mist.

Arjun’s eyes widened in horror. “Maya…”

Before the name could fully escape, Iyer pressed the nozzle. A cold mist sprayed across Arjun’s face. He thrashed once, twice, then sagged, eyelids heavy, body slack.

Iyer set the canister back on the table, straightened his tie, and without a glance behind him, walked out.The door clicked shut, leaving the room in silence, except for the faint hum of the machine, recording every breath Arjun took.

—---

Arjun woke with a start, sheets tangled around his legs, his shirt damp with sweat. His chest heaved as if he’d been running. For a few seconds he couldn’t place where he was - only the ceiling fan circling lazily above reminded him he was home. His head throbbed with a dull ache, the kind that comes after restless sleep. There were no images, no memory of a dream, only a blank fog - except for one thing: a faint hollowness beneath his ribs, sharp and fleeting, as if some part of him had been scooped out in the night.

He sat up, rubbing his eyes. Strange… must’ve been nothing.

He moved through the morning on autopilot: the cold splash of water on his face, the hurried buttoning of his shirt, the usual half-burnt toast from the corner stall. By the time he climbed into a rickshaw, the world felt ordinary again. Yet his mind kept reaching for something it couldn’t quite touch. Flickers of nonsense surfaced - cafeteria, the walk towards home, Maya - then slipped away before he could catch them, like scraps from a dream that never really belonged to him.

Then his phone buzzed.

Notification: Your profile has been analyzed. We found potential matches for you.

His thumb hesitated before unlocking the screen. And there she was. Maya. 

Her photograph, her name glowing back at him. His breath caught. Without thinking, he swiped right. A green animation bloomed across the screen. It’s a Match!

For a moment, he felt weightless. Like the universe had finally tilted in his favor. The rickshaw slowed before the glass gates of his office. Arjun stepped down, heart still racing.

Another rickshaw stopped beside him. Maya emerged, tucking her dupatta into place, brushing a strand of hair off her forehead. Their eyes met. She let a small, uncertain smile slip through. Inside Arjun, a strange warmth spread. 

Without saying anything to each other, side by side, they walked toward the building. Above them, the sun glared off the glass façade. The fleeting hollowness that Arjun had been feeling since he woke up, had vanished altogether. Maya was with him.

By Arnav Timsina