The Abacus
An old pawnshop abacus clicks itself at night, settling accounts no one else remembers. When the books are finally even, it disappears.
Old Wu's pawnshop sat at the tail of the old street, a wooden sign reading “Ju Xing” with the paint half gone.
The most valuable thing in the shop was the old abacus behind the counter. Nothing fancy — jujube wood, the beads clicking sharp — but Wu said it had been with him forty years, closer than his son.
The strange part began last autumn. One night after closing he heard a tick-click-tick from behind the counter, like someone keeping accounts. He switched on the light: the abacus lay where it should, no draft, yet the beads slid up one by one and fell, working with real concentration, as if rushing to settle some old debt.
He first thought rats, then knew better. The abacus clicked a while each night, then stopped; by morning the frame was clean, as if never touched.
When word spread that the old street would be demolished, the abacus clicked more often, sometimes by day. Wu grew uneasy and called in an old gentleman who knew such things. The man felt the wood and sighed: “This carries the former manager's regret. When the shop failed, he ran off with the partners' shares. The abacus kept his muddled accounts for him — for decades, never settled.”
Wu heard this and set the abacus by the shrine, wiping it daily. When the demolition came and the shop closed, he did not take it. On his last night he heard the click again, lighter than ever, as if the books were finally balanced and it could breathe.
The next day the workers came; the abacus was gone. Wu did not look for it. The accounts were even, he thought. The man was free to go.