The Banned Calculator

The teacher's desk in an empty classroom of a grammar school in Düsseldorf after a mathematics test in autumn, the desk drawer pulled half open, inside it four collected pocket calculators in a heap, in front a black one fifteen centimetres long, at its top left a large dark window with a faint blue-green shimmer behind a glossy plain black panel, at its lower right a slanting block of pale grey and orange-red keys, every key plain smooth and unmarked, on the desk a stack of closed plain blue exercise books, rows of empty wooden desks with chairs pushed in, a dark green chalkboard wiped clean, low golden afternoon light from tall windows.