The Memory Bank

Patrick Crawley

Derek sat at his desk, filling out the paperwork to get a customer sent their replacement credit card. Suddenly he felt someone’s presence behind him. He spun around in his chair to find his boss standing behind him.

“Hey Derek. You got a minute?”

“Um… yeah. What’s up?”

“Can you meet me in my office in about twenty minutes?”

A wave of dread rushed over Derek. This was it. He was going to be fired. Four years spent working at the bank all about to be washed down the drain. He had not been sleeping great since his daughter was born six months ago and he was aware that the quality of his work was going downhill, he just hoped nobody else had noticed. Apparently they did.

“S-sure.” he choked out.

“Great.” his boss said and then left.

Derek put his hands on his head. What if he had told his boss that he did not have a minute? Would he have kept his job? He wondered what that conversation would have been like.

“Sorry, I’m too busy to be fired right now. Check back later.”

His wife had just given birth six months ago. How was he going to come back home and tell her that he had been fired? He had twenty minutes to save his job. He knew he had to do something big to impress his boss. 

He finished filling out the paperwork as fast as he could and ran to the janitor’s closet. He grabbed a mop and a bucket of soapy water and made his way towards the entrance. He figured some extra cleaning would be the best way to convince his boss to let him keep his job.

A few minutes after he had begun mopping, he heard a crashing sound behind him. He turned around and found his boss laying flat on his back.

“Oh. Uh… hey Boss.”

“Derek… what are you doing?” “I noticed that the floor was a little dirty, so I decided to mop it up!”

His boss just put his hand over his face. “Let’s have that meeting in my office now.”

Derek sighed. “Yes, Boss.”

Once inside his boss’s office, Derek handed him the paperwork he had been working on. 

“Here’s the form I was filling out. For the customer who requested a new debit card.”

His boss took the form and looked it over for a minute. Then he turned it around and pointed at it.

“See, look at this. You put in the wrong address. If I hadn’t stopped you, you would have just sent someone’s debit card to a random other house!”

“Oops.”

His boss sighed. “This is part of the reason I called you in here in the first place. I like you, Derek, but lately, you just haven’t been yourself. It’s like every week you mess something up!”

“Not every week!” Derek objected.

“Last week a customer came in and requested to withdraw a hundred dollars, but you gave them a thousand dollars instead!”

“That was one time.”

“And the week before when a customer came to make a deposit, you deposited their money into someone else’s bank account.”

“Yeah…”

“And don’t forget the time an old man came in with a cane and you gave him thousands of dollars, thinking it was a robbery.” “Okay, so like, every other week.”

His boss just sighed again. “Derek, I don’t want to fire you, but we can’t have you messing with people’s finances like this.”

“Yeah… I understand.”

“Here’s what we’ll do. We’re gonna transfer you to our memory department, and if your first day there goes well, then you can stay.”

“Our what?!”

“You know, the memory department? It’s right next door.” “How long has that been there?”

“Only for the past ten years.”

“So how does it work?” Derek asked.

“The same way the regular bank operates. Only instead of money, we use memories. People come in with things they would rather forget and they send them to us. Or sometimes people will come in and request memories that they have already forgotten.” 

“We do that?”

“Yep. So why don’t you head on down there and get started?”

Derek made his way down to the memory department and was greeted by a woman at the front desk. 

“Um… hi.” Derek said. “The boss sent me here to do some work?”

“Oh sure!” She responded. “Just take one of the open booths. Each booth has a computer built in with instructions. It’s pretty self explanatory.”

Derek sat down in one of the empty booths and opened up the computer. He was greeted with five paragraphs of instructions. 

“That doesn’t look very self explanatory.” he muttered. “I’ll just figure it out as I go.”

Derek clicked Next after briefly skimming the instructions. He was then given two options: Deposit and Withdrawal.

“I guess I have to wait until a customer shows up.”

Eventually, a customer did arrive. 

“Good afternoon,” Derek said. 

“Hi. I’d like to make a withdrawal.”

Derek selected withdrawal on the screen and was greeted with a field to put in an account name. 

“Can I get a name for the account?” he asked.

“Puppylover13”

Derek filled in the account name and was greeted with a list of the man’s memories.

“Wow” Derek remarked. “Which memory will you be withdrawing today?”

“The family vacation I took when I was 7. We went to the beach. I think we got ice cream at one point. It was nice but I wish I could remember it better.”

Derek scrolled through the list of the man’s memories. Sure enough, he found one titled Family Vacation at Seven.

“Okay it says here that you need to put your hand against the panel on your side of the booth.”

The man did as he was instructed. Derek hovered his cursor over a button that said Transfer Memories.

“Annnd transferred!” Derek said as he clicked the button.

The man’s head dipped down like he was a broken animatronic. 

“Oh crap!” Derek shouted, afraid he had killed him. 

The man suddenly looked up and blinked a couple of times, then shook his head.

“Wow. I forgot about how many cool things we did on that trip. Thanks!” he said, before leaving.

Derek breathed a sigh of relief knowing that he had not unintentionally injured the man. He looked back at the screen that had reset back to showing the Deposit and Withdrawal options. He felt surprised at the fact that this had been going on right next door to the office he had worked in for years and he never noticed. Of course, he had more important things going on, but he still felt a little silly for never noticing. He figured this job would be easy enough, he just had to click the right buttons and give the customers the right memory. He took a deep breath as another customer approached his booth. 

“I’d like to make a withdrawal.”

“Great. Can I get a name for the account?”

“Ratkiller3000”

“Umm… okay. And what memory would you like to withdraw?”

“I’d like to be able to remember the moment I was born, please!”

“Hey man, I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” Derek warned.

“No, don’t worry, it’s gonna be fun.”

“Alright.” Derek obliged and scrolled all the way to the bottom of the man’s list of memories. He selected Birth. “Just lay your hand down on the panel there.”

The man did as he was instructed to and Derek clicked the button to transfer the memory over to him. Again the man’s head dipped down, but this time when he came back to, he did not smile.

“Oh… oh no.”

“Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“Yeah… I’d like to make a deposit.”

“Okay.” The screen reverted back to the Deposit or Withdrawal option. He clicked Deposit and then entered the man’s account name again.

“Just set your hand flat on the panel again for me.” Derek instructed. The man did so and a list of the man’s memories came up on the screen. Derek clicked Birth and then hit the button to deposit the memory back into the bank. The man’s head dropped again and then he looked up and blinked after a minute. 

“Ah. That’s better.” the man said before walking away.

“Well that was weird.” Derek commented. He wondered what other weird things people would ask to remember. Or what other weird memories people might have. Just then, a woman approached the booth.

“Hi. I wanna take my kids to CerealLand. I went there when I was a kid, but I can’t remember much about it. Can you help me remember so that I’ll know if it will make for a good family trip?”

“Certainly.” Derek said, picking the Withdrawal option. “Can I have your account name?”

“Emily’sMemories”

“Great. Just set your hand down on the panel there.”

Emily did as she was told and Derek hit the button to make a withdrawal. Emily’s head dipped down for a moment, but after she picked her head back up, she looked terrified.

“Oh my gosh! I am never taking my kids there!” 

“Huh?” Derek asked, confused, and looked back at the screen. “Uh oh.” Derek said, realizing he picked the wrong memory. Instead of picking the memory for CerealLand, he had selected the memory for a horror movie she saw when she was eight. Derek began to panic and tried to think of a way he could fix the issue.

“Hang on, why don’t you set your hand back on the panel.”

“I didn’t know CerealLand was so scary!” she remarked as she laid her hand back down. Derek quickly deposited the memory and then went back to make another withdrawal. This time he made sure to click CerealLand Trip. Emily’s head dipped down again, but this time when she came back, she smiled.

“Oh yeah! That was a nice trip! I think we’ll go there this summer!” she said as she walked away from the booth.

Derek breathed a sigh of relief just as he felt a presence behind him. He turned around to find his boss standing there. All of the relief immediately left as he knew his boss likely saw his mistake. 

“Uh… hey Boss. You saw that, didn’t you?”

“Sure did.”

“Yeah… sorry about that.”

“It’s alright. I’m just glad you were able to fix it. Everyone is gonna make mistakes sometimes, but I’m glad you know how to do the job well enough to fix those mistakes.”

“So you’re not gonna fire me?”

“Of course not! You’ll make a great employee at the memory bank. I’ll see you tomorrow.” his boss said as he walked away. Derek took a deep breath. He was relieved to still have a job, but he knew it was going to be a lot different from working at a regular bank. Still, he thought this job could be interesting. It would be fun to see what different memories people would come to withdraw and deposit. He knew there was a lot for him to tell his wife about when he got home.