Lights Off

Art cover by Juss Lim. Follow her on Twitter (@JustinMLim) and Instagram (@jusslim_).

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Like putting cattle to sleep.

This was what the higher-ups used to tell Angel Ariel when she was still beginning. She would hear them inside her head say it like a punctuation to every delivery she had ever done. It was meant to make the job easier for some – and it did get easier over time. However, she never liked the way they put it. She remembered how much she hated it when they incessantly inculcated that to her after her first few deliveries.

It was late afternoon and the traffic had begun to pile up. There were cars in her front and rear that barely budged and wedged her into a stop. She wanted to get to her next delivery before sunset but she knew that wasn't going to happen. Not that she nor her clients cared for punctuality. She just absolutely despised being stuck in a helpless situation with no reprieve in sight.

She turned on the radio and fumbled through the channels. Loud incoherent pop tunes blared inside her car until she clicked next and a song from a slower, softer genre played until she clicked next again. She stopped by the news channel and tuned in for a little while. The news was the usual – corruption scandal, political drama, crimes that ranged from petty to horrendous, the newest trend with millennials, and the mundane lives of celebrities. Nothing particularly bizarre. So far, nothing that would have caught the imagination of the newsroom and the masses.

— which altogether was unsurprising to her. After all, her clients were too commonplace and their requests were far from deviant – at least from how it looked. Besides, people would rather turn a blind eye and continue as is than acknowledge their existence.

And her clients did not mind this. They knew they would not understand them anyway.

She arrived and parked her car on the side of the road. It was already dark – quarter after seven, her wristwatch noted. The only things that lit the neighborhood were lampposts and windows from seemingly lively houses. She made sure that the shadows camouflaged her car and nobody would remember seeing it there the next day.

Even without checking the exact address, she knew exactly where her next client was. His house was the only one that looked deserted – the rest looked well kept. The gates were rusty and half-opened. The paint of the walls was already flaking, peeled off, and smeared by dirt. The roof was discolored and dead leaves littered its gutters. Overall, it was an eyesore to an otherwise pleasing community. The only sign that someone was living there was the parked car inside the gates and a dim light pressed onto the window blinds. Her client obviously already gave up trying to make this house at least look habitable.

She surveyed the surroundings once more and made sure that no one would see her. Unlike her car, she knew she would easily standout – even easier to be remembered. Slender, fair-skinned woman wearing a dark trench coat and black-heeled boots entering a rundown house during the night – that would easily spark a rumor – or worse, an unwarranted interest directed to her or her client. Once she was certain, she got her purse and walked briskly toward the half-opened gate.

She knocked on the door and waited. There was no response – not even the slightest hint of movement inside. She checked if she was on the right address. She was certain her client was supposed to be here. Maybe he did not need her anymore, she wondered. She kept knocking until the door screeched open and a pair of eyes peered out the edge.

"I thought you've already gone through it without me," she said. She reached out her hand but the man behind the door ignored her. "I'm your angel."