Everything instantly went dark.  I was suspended in the VR treadmill and could really only rely on sound and touch. “Angel? Misty?” 

“Uh-oh. Looks like the outage affects this room as well.” I could hear Misty rummaging for something in the dark but whatever it was, it was taking her a long time. “Sorry, y’all. We may be stuck in here for a little bit.” 

 Angel was calm. “No worries. I can see in the dark. Brittany, can you follow my voice if I guide you on what to do?” 

“Yes.” I voiced, though I had my doubts.  

“Alright, first, plant your feet firmly on the ground. Can you feel the straps holding you in place? They should have a buckle on the chest and on the outside of your legs. Do you feel them?” 

I felt around and located the clips of the buckles. I pulled the harness off and heard it clack down to the ground. “Awesome! Now, slowly—” 

Without thinking, I stumbled off the treadmill and heard a crunch. In my spinning around while watching the security footage, I had completely forgotten that I had knocked something off of the small tray next to the treadmill.  I hadn’t realized until now that that something sounded like something important. 

I heard Angel groan. “What? What did I just do?” I asked nervously. 

“Yeah… You just stepped on your glasses…” 

“Ah! What??? I can’t see without them!” 

“I know.” I heard him pick up the pieces of my glasses. “Here. I was about to say slowly turn around and I’ll help you down. I’m right here.” I felt his hand on my shoulder. “I’m going to put my hand under your elbow to guide you out of here once the power comes back on. Then I think we’ll need to travel into the city to find an eye doctor who can either fix these or get you a new pair of glasses.” 

Feeling defeated, I complied with Angel’s suggestion and felt him guide me to a nearby chair to sit while we all waited in pitch-black darkness. The darkness felt heavy. “Angel?” I broke the awkward silence. “How can you see in the dark?” 

“Most High made me that way. I can see in and through all darkness.” 

“You can? I thought that you need light to see through the darkness.”

“Yep.  My eyes not only reflect light (any light that can be found) but they can emit light as well. Not very bright light, but just enough so I can see. It’s a light that’s undetectable for most humans, but most certainly light indeed.” 

“Undetectable light?” 

“Yep. Light comes in all kinds of spectrums and it has a visible and invisible scale. The kind of light that Most High created me with is invisible to the human eye so it looks like I’m dark or sometimes even invisible most of the time.  That’s why, when you can see with your current eyesight, I look like I have dark eyes and hair.  But they’re not. They’re actually light and they are lighting up the room. You and Misty just can’t see it with the eyes you both have.” 

Misty let out a huge exclamation. “Aha! Speaking of light, here it is!” Misty switched on a tiny pen-sized flashlight. “I’ve been carrying this around with me in my purse since the outages are so common. Just took me a while to fish it out.” She walked over toward us and flashed her light at the glasses. Although everything looked very blurry to me, I could tell that these glasses were beyond repair. “Geez…” I sighed. “I really liked those glasses too…” 

Angel gently cradled the glasses as if they were a baby that had injured itself. “I know how much this hurts to say goodbye to them.  But they did serve you as well as they could.” 

“Aw… Angel!” I was touched at how sensitive he was being around my feelings on my glasses. “You don’t have to be sad for me.  They were just glasses. They can be replaced.” 

“Yes. You will get new ones. But these were unique. There were no other glasses that could meet your specific needs and style quite like these. That’s the hard part about my job. I know how much effort humans and Most High put into their creations.  And how much joy and delight they get from seeing their creations work in their intended purpose. The difference between us, the angels, and you humans is that though we have the ability to have a will and think freely, angels do not have the capability to create like Most High can. Only humans can do that. He created me to disassemble, yes. And my brother to reassemble, true. But all blueprints and designing comes from Him. And your lot has that capability as well. If there’s one thing my brother and I have in common, it’s that we deeply love and appreciate art. And we both mourn in our own way when that art doesn’t last forever. Because we know that the likelihood of it being reassembled the same exact way is slim to none.  Assembling and disassembling atoms takes a lot of effort and energy. So yes. I’m sad about this accident with you.” 

He paused and allowed a long and reverent moment of silence. “Did you need additional time to be with your glasses and process this loss? Or did you want me to send them in for transitional processing?” 

No one had ever really asked me a question after a loss of anything important if I needed time or if I was ready to let them go. It was so touching, and I found myself blinking away a tear. “Dang it! Why do you have me crying over my glasses? They were just glasses. But yes, Angel. They were very good to me and they did exactly what they were supposed to do. I-” 

At that moment, the power came back on.  It took a second for my eyes to adjust to the light.  “Ah! Like clockwork! Looks like the power’s back!” Misty jumped up from her chair excitedly. “Did we get the info we need in this room for now? If so, I’d like to get out of here before another outage comes and we’re really stuck in here.” 

I could feel Angel looking at me although his face was very blurry from my viewpoint. He spoke on my behalf. “I think we’re good for now as well. I think Madame President definitely needs to get some new glasses so she can run a nation.” Misty chuckled and walked back over to her computer station. Once she closed out of everything, shut the computer down and carefully replaced the key card that operated the room, she pushed a button on the wall where the spinning mantle was located and escorted us out.  

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Total Words: 17,282