The Myth of the Missing Calculators
by Justin Cruzana
Calculators, like people, are very fond of disappearing. This was certainly the case in the College of Accountancy, where students go with their identity intact and go out as someone else.
Before the legend became a legend, it was a secret, a rumor, a story told in hiding. It was a fact told in small voices, outside school grounds, inside dormitories; a story told in texts, told in voicemails, told in writing. It was the case of an accountancy student who disappeared without a word, a note, a warning, a reason. A student who was under the gazebos one day, studying, and gone the next.
His vanishing had prompted attention that turned into concern and, eventually, into fear. The staff called the missing student’s parents, his professors, his friends, all culminating into a down-swept answer: “I don’t know where he is.” Was he ill? Did he seem troubled? No. Did he have trouble in school? No — actually, he was an excellent student. His marks were never below 90, his attendance was perfect, and even when their dorm was on the farthest side of Padre Noval, and the walk to campus was a little longer, he was never late. He was not good enough — he was good, without exception, without buts, without contradiction.
So how come he had disappeared without a trace?
In recent interviews with his parents, friends, and colleagues, they all agreed on the same thing: his disappearance didn’t make sense. He wasn’t spontaneous and he didn’t go out unless it was to the library or to coffee shops to study. All his energy was poured in his textbooks, his case studies, studying between meals, between conversations, between prayers, between classes. He seemed to like studying so much that the college took him in the night, with ardor, and began to swallow him whole.
Later, students started gathering frequently in the lost and found section. There seemed to be an epidemic of missing calculators.
It had frustrated the staff when the first few students reported it, then it became frightening when they came to the lost and found section in batches. The victims had similar reports of the event: they had put it on the table and, in a span of a blink, vanished. An accountancy student without their calculator would be a knight going to battle a without a sword. Who was doing it and why would they do such a thing?
No living person could steal calculators so stealthily. They would have to be invisible — they would have to be missing.
During exams, everyone brings an extra calculator for good measure. There was a thief who could never be caught at all. There was no one else to blame except one, and there was no way to confirm if it was so. Did he do it to prevent the students from overworking? Did he do it out of spite?
Every year, a calculator is stolen, a story is shared, and a mystery is secured a place in time.
