The following is excerpted from Diana Oropeza’s forthcoming book, An Incomplete Catalog of Disappearance (Future Tense Books). Order a copy.

RAPHAEL

The subject of the missing painting is unidentified, though many believe it to be a self-portrait. Although the painting was never recovered, it has been known for years that the painting survived the war and it is not believed lost, but stolen. All the surviving photographs of this work are in black and white, so there is no way of knowing the piece’s true colors, and any color renderings you may have seen have only been imagined. The painting was last seen in the hands of a military unit named The Hellfish, who stole the painting during a raid and stashed it in a strongbox at the bottom of a lake. A contract was made, a tontine rather, in which the last surviving member of the Hellfish would inherit the painting and all of its wealth. And after a series of assassinations, one sole member remained. The trunk was fished out, but when the last Hellfish opened it, there was nothing inside except a cartoon version of the portrait. Some experts believe this cartoon is the most accurate color rendering we have seen to date. As for the original painting, it has yet to resurface. The National Museum is offering $100 million dollars for the missing painting’s safe return. Currently, the Museum exhibits the missing painting’s original frame, empty, awaiting the painting’s homecoming

PAULIDES

X is a former police officer best known for his extensive research on the existence of Bigfoot. For X, the biped is more than a myth, and he has dedicated his life to developing scientific proof that Bigfoot truly exists. Of course, many have ridiculed X’s persistent belief but this has not deterred his rigorous search for the missing link. One day, while searching through the woods, X finds something strange buried in the ground. What he unearths turns out to be a trunk full of investigation files, mostly open cases of people who have disappeared in National Parks. X attempts to return the case files to the Parks Department, but their legal team says that the Department does not keep any record of disappearances, so there is no way that the files could be theirs. When X questions the logic of not keeping these records, the team replies that they rely on the “institutional memory” of their employees to keep track of all the disappearances. Otherwise, they say, the files just pile up. So X takes the unclaimed trunk home with him, overturns its contents onto his desk, and begins following the footprints

AKBAR

I found myself speaking inside a poem of Akbar’s, speaking of an atomized absence, speaking of ants carrying home the names of new colors. His words were both of us. My tongue too was born in books, the stories were ours/our own, my mouth a multiplication of Akbars, of another Akbar, who went missing inside the stomach of a python, who disappeared for two days until the python slithered into Akbar’s backyard monstrously swollen. (Was he returning Akbar home?) When the locals cut the snake open, Akbar was inside, Akbar was gone. Akbar says this crayon’s name is Latin for “nothing follows” or “some things are missing,” which I call cetera desunt, or “a work unfinished.” Our names, some trace of a dead language

DEPRONG MORI

As it is told, the ghost had bitten a child on the hand. The following day, the child shocked everyone by suddenly playing the piano like a master. The child, never having touched a piano before, now rivaled the world’s greatest composers. Some hypothesized the child was simply an undiscovered genius, until the wound healed and the music stopped completely. People spoke of it for years afterward, and some even prayed for their own bite, so that they too might experience temporary brilliance. As it went, the ghost turned out to be a bat, according to researchers, and a rare one at that. And now, it sits preserved in a block of lead on exhibition at the museum, newly named after its captor. And yet, no one can account for the appearance of music. Some suggested it was a reaction from the bite, a kind of spasm or temporary fever. People would often ask the child for details but the child could only tell make-believe stories. And as time wore on, the child could no longer recall what actually happened

HSBD-IRYT

After receiving an anonymous tip that the body of a famous mobster had been buried in a nearby village, excavators went to work digging. While they didn’t recover the body, what they uncovered instead was a pile of bones that experts later confirmed were dodo birds. Their hooked beaks did not look the way they had been rendered in books, though they have been rendered so differently that their appearance is mostly unknown. In fact, for a long time no one even knew they existed, believing them myth until they saw the evidence. These bones were a beautiful color, one that hadn’t been seen by the human eye since before the creatures went extinct. But what was the name of that primordial blue? They said it was the original color of the sky, the pigment used to paint gods. Now they say our sky is violet, our eyes just can’t see it, and they say the dodos went extinct because they were fearless but flightless, and now they are nothing but bones, which we are still finding piles and piles of. I don’t know how to pronounce the name of this color, the blue of desecrated bone, but I do know that a group of dodos is called an absence

SEOW & LAI

M lost her home in a scam, swindled by so-called friends, and lost all contact with her family, saying she was too ashamed to show her face. Instead, she lived on the street for five years. Her whereabouts unknown to anyone, she headed to the nation’s largest city, and among many other people experiencing homelessness, she slept at a 24-hour McDonalds, which offers refuge found in few other places. M came in one day, exhausted, and curled up next to another displaced woman who made room for her on the crowded bench. The woman introduced herself to M by saying she shares a surname with the CEO of McDonald’s, and they both laughed at the cruel joke. Eventually, they fall into a comfortable sleep together on the bench, their feet pointed in opposite directions, heads nearly touching. Exactly one hour later, M woke up to some kind of disturbance. There were paramedics and police officers all around her, and even the Associated Press was there taking statements. Apparently, the woman next to M had been dead for hours and had gone entirely unnoticed by diners who thought she was merely sleeping. M was confused, “But that can’t be.” she said, “I just spoke with her, only an hour ago. We were laughing. She made room for me.” The officer on duty said that M’s testimony was inconsistent with the video surveillance, but the AP took her statement, nonetheless. The following Sunday, M’s son was at home reading the newspaper when he came across an interesting article about a group of people dubbed “McRefugees” who were first discovered after a woman died unnoticed and unnamed. The article included numerous images of sleeping bodies slumped in colorful booths and also included a quote from M, saying she would rather disappear than experience shame. At which point M’s son put down the newspaper and flew to the golden arches to be reunited with her, because some doors never close

DÁVILA

There is a knock at the door. When I open it, there is a single, empty chair sitting on the doorstep. I don’t know what this chair is doing here or who could have brought it, but it's getting rained on and I can’t help but think it’s important. Plus it reminds me of someone, and it's very dark out, so I bring it inside to decide what should be done with it. I do not sit in it, because I believe that there is already someone sitting in it, someone I can’t see, since chairs can’t knock on doors by themselves. So I pull up a second chair in front of the empty chair and wait for my guest to speak

HOUSEKEEPER

Fold the towels into soft animals. Wear quiet, clean shoes. Place all signs of life into the mop bucket. Vacuum yourself out of the room