I was walking down the street with a crate of books when I met Angel.
‘How much?’ she asked me.
‘For what?’
She smiled. ‘The books, dummy.’
I looked down at the books in the crate.
‘Oh, I’m not selling these.’
‘Why carry them in a crate?’
‘That was how I bought them,’ I said, wondering what else I was meant to be carrying the books in.
‘Who carries books around in a crate if they aren’t selling them?’
‘Look, I bought the whole crate, alright? I book all the woman’s books. She threw the crate. That explanation satisfy you?’
‘Why would you buy an entire crate of books?’ she asked. Angel was full of questions.
I inhaled and gave her a look.
‘There’s twenty-four books in here and she wanted five pounds,’ I throw up five fingers. ‘Five pounds for twenty-four books is like 20p a book.’
‘That’s a good deal, but what do you want them for? You gonna read all twenty-four of them? You don’t look like the reading type.’
I was going to ask her what the reading type was, but I stopped myself because I wasn’t going to read them. I’ve never read a book in my life.
‘No, I’m not reading them. I’m going to put them up online.’
‘So you are selling them! I knew it. Let me see them.’
I moved the crate away from her.
‘No, none for you. I’m going to put them up online for a nice profit.’
‘How much?’ Angel asked me, her words dripping with curiosity.
‘About five each,’ I said, smug.
‘What, you think you’ll make… one-twenty out of that little crate?’
‘Of course.’
I set the crate down by my feet and brought out my phone, then pulled up my store. I scrolled down the page, SOLD so prevalent that it worked as subliminal messaging. Then all the reviews. Over two hundred five stars.
‘I don’t get it. But people love this shit. So I provide for the people and they provide for me,’ I said.
‘Angels provide for me,’ Angel replied.
I didn’t know what she meant but I never know what people mean. I just let them talk and talk anyway.
‘That’s nice. I’ve got to go though, get these books up for sale.’
‘If you’re going to sell them anyway let me take a look through them.’
‘You’ll try and hustle me.’
‘Five pounds,’ Angel said. ‘I promise.’
I lowered the crate to the floor and she sat in front of it, leafing through the books piled on top of one another. Her face ranged from perplexed to disgusted. She got to the last book and shook her head.
‘You’ve got nothing good here,’ Angel said, rising from the floor. ‘Just boring thrillers and cookbooks for idiots. No one’ll buy this stuff. Don’t you have any real fiction?’
‘I knew you’d waste my time here. Insulting my goods. The world is bigger than your judgements, my friend. There will be buyers, I know. You do this for a while and you know that no matter what dogshit you put up for sale, some stranger will put in an offer for it. Trust me. You wouldn’t believe the stuff I’ve sold before.’
‘I can’t,’ Angel said. ‘I don’t want to believe it. All the great literature in the world and people would rather read this.’
‘Great literature don’t mean shit. All I care about is what people buying. And people are buying everything. Cookbooks or self-help books or romances or science fiction or even those pieces of ‘great literature’ you’re talking about, some people buy those too. I make sure I put that in the descriptions for them. Timeless classic. Underappreciated masterpiece. Their worlds light up when they discover something others haven’t. They feel real special. I make them feel special.’
‘You’re an asshole, you know that?’
‘Oh, I know that baby. I know. But I’m making money. People like you are paying my rent, whilst they sit on their highchairs scoffing at the other listings on my page. “Who the hell would buy that?” they ask to their bookshelf because no one else is in the room with them.’
I picked up my crate and walked away, leaving her on the floor.
I probably should’ve asked for her name, her real name, but I like to tell people I was visited by an Angel.