The Calculator (IP)

The tram was packed, as always, a shifting mass of humanity wedged together on their way to somewhere else. A family sat near the front, the parents fussing over a baby in a pram, their faces softened with coos and murmurs. Nearby, a homeless man, his clothes rumpled and reeking of stale sweat, chattered away, not asking for money but for conversation, and strangely enough, people were listening. They smiled, laughed even, indulging his eager need for connection. But beyond these pockets of life, everyone else was absorbed, heads bowed to their glowing screens, disconnected from the moment.

I counted the faces, each one bathed in that faint blue light, oblivious to the world around them. And then, I noticed him—a boy, no more than thirteen, sitting among the screen-staring commuters. He wasn’t holding a phone. No, in his hands was something altogether stranger: a cheap, pocket-sized calculator.

He moved his fingers over the buttons with a practised motion, eyes glued to the tiny LCD screen, as if it held all the answers he sought. Occasionally, he’d swipe at it like you would a smartphone, mimicking the gestures of those around him. But he wasn’t doing sums. That much was clear.

He was pretending. Pretending to fit in, to be one of them. His clothes, too, told a story—a clean but ill-fitting jacket, shoes that looked just a bit too big, the kind of outfit cobbled together by someone who couldn’t afford to get it quite right. His face was a mask of concentration, sometimes furrowed in confusion, sometimes softening into surprise, as if he expected the calculator to respond, to entertain him like the sleek devices in everyone else’s hands.

And there it was—the stark, sad truth of it all. This boy, unable to posess the real thing, would rather feign the experience of having a mobile phone than do anything else. No comic books tucked under his arm, no evidence of a day spent throwing frisbees in the park, no signs of play in the old-fashioned sense. Instead, he was caught up in the twisted expectations of modern life, where to be a citizen means to participate in this constant, digital communion.

The world outside the tram, with its endless possibilities for adventure and imagination, had become irrelevant. There was no place for idle play, no room for daydreams or spontaneity. Modern life wasn’t designed for children like him—it wasn’t designed for anyone to simply be. It was engineered to make him feel small, like he was missing something essential, something everyone else seemed to have.

So, he sat there, determined, with his fingers tapping away at a dead, plastic screen, chasing an illusion of belonging in a world that had forgotten how to make space for kids to just be kids. And the saddest part was, he wasn’t playing. He was practising.