Banking on Hope

A David Sands Competition story by Sasha Grojean

Oct 14, 2025

An entry in The Sands of Time Writing Competition

Banking on Hope by Sasha Grojean

Wake up, lay in bed, and stare at the ceiling in existential dread for a good half hour before summoning up the energy to face the morning. This had been my life for the past few months. Two years ago, my daily routine had started with energy and joie de vivre, bounding out of bed and straight into the kitchen for that first cup of delicious, sweet nectar of the gods - I think you might call it tea. I had been the textbook definition of bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, all excitement and motivation.

It had been my dream job, working for a university. Culture had always been my passion - understanding how people worked, what brought them together, what tore them apart. I truly believe culture is the basis for how we operate within the world - religion, language, government, fashion and more all build upon it and interact with it, but they all tie into this wonderful holistic, often intangible concept of culture - of who we are, the sum of our parts, bigger than just one being. Stronger together, and all that.

Well, I should say I believed that. Two years of political decisions, of not being allowed to say this in that way to that person, of not being allowed to follow this line of thought. Of hushing up actual findings just because, well, they were only theories anyway, and we don’t want to upset the current status quo for something so flimsy. Now, I am fully convinced that posturing, politics, and power form the basis for our existence.

I had already known that studying contemporary communities in anthropology would be stressful, to say the least - you try studying people doing things right now without becoming enslaved to the court of public opinion, or worse - funding. Everybody, particularly my university heads and those government officials they definitely didn’t report to, could ‘see what was going on and come to their own conclusions about it’ - generally, those in support of their current endeavors or campaigns. Hearing some of them flaunt buzzwords like “bias” and “diversity” and “equity” publicly, while shutting down studies to understand communities and actively support them behind closed doors, was not something I could have tolerated for long. The irony would have killed me.

And so, I had stayed away from cultural anthropology, focusing more on archaeology. I’d reasoned that there couldn’t be too much uproar over any findings of the cultural developments of civilizations past, that there would be minimal interference. I’d been catastrophically wrong.

I was still staring up at the ceiling, not actually seeing it. My mind spun in desperate circles, weaving through what had been and what was likely to come today, and screaming at me to just fall back asleep. There were no corrupt approval processes or censoring meetings in sleep. Ah, actually, lately there had been, but those were just nightmares. Guess it didn’t really matter, at this point, whether I was awake or asleep. It was all just one big bundle of suck either way.

In that case, might as well get up. At least reality offered tea, no longer an indulgent treat to be savored, but a necessary lifeline.

Having barely logicked my way out of a total mental shutdown, I ungraciously rolled out of bed and made my way into the kitchen. All those little steps that you needed to get ready and be presentable for the world, which normally didn’t phase me, were now a long list of to-dos. My brain helpfully supplied the world’s most detailed instructional guide to try to support me, but the mental list made even the most complicated Ikea manual seem like a picture book for toddlers in comparison.

Step one, pull on left sock. Step two, right sock. Step three, rifle through drawers to search for clean underwear. Step four, give up on the drawers and hunt through the pile of clean but unfolded clothes on the chair in the corner for underwear. And so on, and so forth. I won’t bore you with all the steps - trust me, nobody wants to hear them. Least of all me. Let’s skip forward a bit and just assume I’ve managed to put articles of clothing on at least roughly the right body parts, attempted some semblance of hygiene and respectability, and made it out the door.

Work that day was, well, work. On today’s agenda - a Very Important Meeting in which I was to present a new method of extrapolating dimensions of hierarchy in ancient civilizations based on intricacy of tools, particularly comparing cooking tools to weapons and those used for infrastructure. In plain English - I’d developed a new way to measure how societies value ‘women’s work’ compared to ‘men’s work’ based on how cool their gear was, relative to another. The publishing meeting went, predictably, terribly awry. Apparently, according to the sounding board, my new method would be irrelevant because “women’s tools are strictly utilitarian and men’s tools are status symbols, so they can’t be compared” (their words, definitely not mine). You’d think they’d never even seen ancient cookware before, from like any civilization, ever.

“I told you there was no point to this. What a massive waste of time,” I whined to Julia in the small office we shared afterwards. Yes, whined - I felt I had earned that, at least, after all my hard work. She had been my mentor since joining the university staff, and seemed much more resilient to such disappointments and setbacks. I blame it on her long tenure, and curious ability to push the most controversial theories in the entire department. The lady sure had luck on her side.

“Honestly, I thought it would go much better. I really don’t know why they shot you down - they’re usually much more open-minded.”

She was a tiny older woman, but exuded such confidence and self-assuredness that I usually forgot how small she really was, until I tried to stare into her eyes. As usual, my eyes first skimmed the top of her head before dropping down to make eye contact.

“Yeah, maybe for you,” I retorted, narrowing my eyes, as I sat down moodily in my chair.

She laughed, shrugged her shoulders and handed me a bowl of sweets across the desk.

“Well, it was worth a try! Personally, I think it’s fascinating, and would really shake up some of our assumptions on women in the workforce, all the way back then. Just imagine the strength that would give to Professor Key’s bid to join the Council. All those mutterings about women being unfit to lead…”

I answered her with a long, blank stare before saying, “It ever occur to you that might be exactly the reason why Marcus refused to publish it?”

“Ah.” She gazed into the air, thoughtful, as she moved to her own desk.

It seemed the conversation had come to a close, so I pulled an external hard-drive from my bag and plugged it into my desktop. Maybe it was paranoia, or pride, who knows? But I would do anything to avoid my research and my effort going to waste, even stealing my own files. Maybe a tiny part of me still had some hope for the future? That one day the university leadership might see the light, renounce all political association, and do the right thing? No, in all honesty, it was probably just my bruised ego.

“Are you happy here?”

The question surprised me, and pulled me out of my (just slightly) criminal endeavor suddenly. I glanced up sharply.

“Happy as a clam. I always wanted to be part of a circus, as a kid. Just something magical about leaping through hoops of fire, running around in circles, just because someone’s standing there with a whip.”

Oops, not the right moment for sarcasm. She sighed, looked at me without a hint of the playfulness and optimism I had come to expect from her, and asked again.

“Katherine, are you happy here?”

This time, I gave myself a moment to think before responding. I immediately knew, in my bones, that I was deeply unhappy, but I owed it to Julia to think my response through. We’re all taught to portray a specific persona at work, not to let emotions get in the way - but maybe it was time to say out loud what I could barely face myself. Maybe talking about it with someone would make it easier to bear.

“Honestly, absolutely not. I’ve never felt so helpless in my life, and it feels like part of me is dying. You know, when you’re a kid, and you have all these dreams and hopes? I think that dims down a bit for nearly everyone, once you hit reality and responsibility and things like that. But for me, it doesn’t feel dimmer. It feels like the things I believed in and loved have become a black hole, and are pulling the rest of me down with it. It feels like there’s something in you, that doesn’t fit, and the universe is actively trying to destroy it. It feels like drowning, or being caught in a rip-tide, or being buried under the snow in an avalanche, with only a few precious moments of air left before it runs out and you know nobody is coming to save you because the world doesn’t care, and you don’t fit into its plans. It feels like running against a wall until your head starts to bleed, so you sit down and try to recover but then it turns out the wall is running towards you and you can’t escape it and it just… never… ends.”

Everything had blurred as I stared into the dark abyss inside of me, so I hadn’t noticed Julia move until she stood next to me, tissues in hand for the tears I hadn’t felt falling. She patted my cheeks reasonably dry and held my hands in hers. Numbly, I realized the tissues were streaked with black. I must have looked a proper mess, but couldn’t summon the capacity to care.

“That’s what I thought. Not everyone is made for this life, and that’s okay. There’re other paths,” she said softly.

That shook me out of my dazed state.

“But I don’t want other paths! I have to do something meaningful with my life. I can’t just give up - there has to be some small way I can make a difference. I just need to try a little harder.”

There it was - that little spark that still got me out of bed in the morning, albeit late. The tiny, flickering glow that kept the overwhelming hopelessness just barely at bay.

Julia shook her head. “No, love, you misunderstood me. Not everyone is made for this institution. I think it’s time I introduced you to somebody.”

That day, and that conversation, changed my life. Who knew, all you needed to do was to have a massive breakdown on the job for someone to come along and open up doors you couldn’t even dream of? If they’d told me that earlier, I would have lit something on fire ages ago. Who knows what opportunities that would have brought?

It was a kindness, that Julia had sent me home for the rest of the day.

“You look a mess. I promise you, we can figure this out - tomorrow. First you go home, take a bath, eat some ice-cream or a whole cake or drink a bottle of wine, pick your poison - but rest today, dear. Meet me at this address tomorrow morning at nine o’clock, and bring that little hard-drive you think I don’t know about. I know someone who might be interested in it,” she had said.

After looking me up and down, she had added, “Actually, let’s make that eleven. Take yourself out to breakfast beforehand.”

I’d followed her prescription, settled on a few scoops of ice-cream, small slice of cake and and small glass of wine (so long as you looked at them from far away), so just a mild poison across the board, and was now standing well-rested and slightly-better-adjusted in front of what seemed to be a very old bank. The building was massive, and really could use a good pressure-washing, if the walls could have withstood it without crumbling. Still, this was the address she had given me.

Knowing my tendency to be (un)fashionably late, I had told myself to get there by ten o’clock, which meant I arrived at about 10:45. Thankfully, too, since Julia was already standing in front of the building waiting with two teas in hand.

“Here, chamomile,” she handed me the hot cup.

As I made a face, she smiled and said conspiratorially, “Trust me, you won’t need any caffeine today.”

We entered the building together, and I trailed her to a teller’s counter to the far right where a young man sat reading a book. He had longer hair than was fashionable, to his shoulders and cut off at one length. A rotating fan at his desk pushed his hair into his eyes every so often, and he would yank it back behind his ear, clearly frustrated.

He glanced up as we approached, and graced Julia with a dazzling smile.

“Heard you were coming today. Knock, knock.”

“Who’s there?”, Julia answered with an equally exuberant smile.

“Woo.”

“Woo who?”

“Someone’s excited to see me!”

He grinned, stood up, winked at me and extended a hand.

“I’m David, nice to meet you.”

“Katherine. Nice to meet you, too. Have you ever tried a hair tie?” Both he and Julia were so bubbly it was infectious, and I found myself grinning in return.

“Nah, not suave and mysterious enough. Come on then, Miles is waiting for us.” David came out from behind the counter through a small door, and motioned towards the elevator. We stepped in, and to my surprise, headed towards the basement.

Miles was a very, very large man. If there had been sunlight down here, he would have blocked it out. Tall and broad didn’t do him justice - giants would have been intimidated by him. I was caught off guard, then, by his soft voice and exquisite manners, as he bowed to greet us.

I don’t think anyone had ever bowed to me before.

“Ms. Julia, always a pleasure” he said, leaning so far down to kiss both her cheeks that I feared he would fall over, like a mighty oak felled.

He then reached out and took my hand gently, brushing his lips against the back of it.

“A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Katherine. My name is Miles.”

“The pleasure’s all mine,” I answered after a moment of fumbling around for the right words. I really wasn’t used to formality, or even respect, for that matter.

“If you’ll join me, ladies,” he said, offering both of us a massive arm.

As we walked down the brightly lit hallway, I heard David mutter from behind, “Nobody ever offers me a kiss.”

We passed many doors, all with small plaques that read “Archives”, “Patents”, “Supplies”, and so on until we reached a door towards the end of the hallway. This one read “Market Research”, and was sealed with an electronic keypad.

Miles keyed in an awfully long code, and then held his thumb to a larger button, I supposed scanning it. I shared a quick glance with David, who arched one eyebrow comically and gave me a goofy thumbs-up. Truly, I had no idea why someone at a bank would be interested in my work, or in me - and I fervently hoped that I wasn’t here to become a research assistant for financial markets. The small glow in me that had been steadily growing since yesterday afternoon shrunk back at the thought.

A click, and the door opened. Miles pulled it back, and ushered me in with an expectant look. I don’t know what I had expected. Maybe some filing cabinets, some desks with computers, and a bunch of tired looking, drab people in grey suits, plugging away on their keyboards or banging their heads against something, anything hard enough?

It certainly hadn’t been this. Closest to the door was a small lounge, complete with gaming systems, picnic tables, bean bags, and those exciting snack machines from Japan that could make you a delicious hot meal at the push of a button. A long kitchen island framed the space, complete with a coffee machine and tea bar glamorous enough to make a notorious coffee chain’s mermaid quit in a rage, make a deal with a sea witch and apply for a job here.

A few people - normal looking people, mind you, no grey-suited, soulless zombies in sight - lounging about the area smiled or waved a hello. Beyond the kitchen island, a large open area boasted a huge tree (I asked later, and apparently there is a gardener whose sole job it is to ensure the tree has enough nutrients and artificial light to survive), and stepped plateaus to create an arena. Here, only a couple of people were sitting dispersed, most with files and papers and large electronic tablets scattered about them haphazardly.

As I stared in awe, Miles, David and Julia had filed in behind me.

“What kind of bank is this?”, I asked Miles incredulously, who laughed.

“I think I’d better let Ms. Littlefield explain everything in one of the interview rooms,” the giant man replied, gently steering me towards a set of doors in the far-left corner.

After ensuring both Julia and I were comfortably seated in the most inviting armchairs I had ever seen in a conference room, Miles relieved both of us of our empty cups and bid us wait while he went to get the mysterious Ms. Littlefield. Oh, and would we like anything to drink, or a snack? No? Well, he would just get us a small selection, just in case.

David hadn’t followed us in, and I waited as patiently as I could until the door shut behind a retreating Miles.

“What the hell, Julia?! What is this place?” I spun on her, just as soon as the door fell closed.

“Calm down, calm down, Katherine,” she raised her arms in mock-defense. “I’ll explain a little bit before Victoria gets here.”

I settled back down and raised my eyebrows, bracing myself.

“This is actually a bank, but you are right to assume they do not do market research in… well... the typical sense here. You might have noticed that I sometimes get a bit more leniency from the university board-”

“Ha. Just a bit?” I interjected.

“Oh hush,” she continued. “Well, the reason for that is this department here. Victoria is family, and she set up this department about twenty years ago. I’ll leave her to explain what exactly they do here, and why they might be interested in you, but firstly you must know that you will be required to sign an NDA. Breaking it would be tantamount to suicide. No, they won’t kill you,” she added at the look of horror on my face. “But they will isolate you, and have the connections to make sure you never see anyone you care for ever again. And your loved ones won’t even ask questions about you - there would be a natural disaster, or an accident, and you would be dead, for all intents and purposes, to the world. Not actually dead, though.”

She must have found some confirmation as she searched my face, as she nodded and continued on.

“What they do here isn’t entirely legal, in a way. Oh, I personally find it absolutely moral, but they do have their ways of influencing people in high positions to … let’s say… see things clearly. They, like I, have found that the truth isn’t always appreciated without the right… ah. Motivations.”

I nodded. Two years ago, I would have been appalled, but my time within the academic system had changed that. I knew exactly what she meant.

Before she could continue, the door opened to reveal Miles, carrying a tray of hot water and assorted tea as well as a variety of baked goods. Behind him, a tall woman came in - Ms. Littlefield. She was a good deal younger than I had expected, both because of the long-standing existence of the department and her relation to Julia. I judged her to be in her mid-forties, about fifteen years younger than I knew Julia to be. She was dressed professionally in a well-tailored suit, a stark contrast from the informal attire I had seen the others out in the open arena wear, but it was bright turquoise, and she wore dangling pink earrings - so not entirely normal, either.

“I’m Victoria, dear. Julia has told me a lot about you,” she leaned down to kiss both my cheeks, as I awkwardly tried to greet her, half-rising from a chair quite reluctant to release me.

“Don’t worry about calling me Ms. Littlefield - I prefer Victoria, but I can’t seem to get Miles to stop,” she said, flashing a comfortable smile in his direction.

“It’s very nice to meet you, Mi…. Victoria. I’m Katherine.” I hadn’t made it quite out of the chair, but the bubbly woman had already gone to throw her arms around Julia, so I let myself fall back into it.

“I’ll get right to it. My aunt has shown me some of your research, topics of interest, and credentials. I think you would be a fantastic fit for our organization, and I suspect you would be much, much more fulfilled working here.”

Accepting a file that had somehow materialized in Miles’s hand, she slid it in front of me.

“I’m not sure how much you know, yet, but I am afraid I can’t tell you exactly what it is we do here until you’ve signed a nondisclosure agreement. Don’t worry, it isn’t a contract - you’ll still be able to turn down my offer after you’ve heard me out, but I do need you to - Oh. Alright then.”

I had opened and signed the document without so much as a second glance before she had finished speaking.

“I really, really would like to hear more,” I said, sitting up straight and doing my best to look like a well-rounded adult, and not like a small child waiting impatiently for the candy shop to open.

With a nod towards Julia, Victoria said, “You really have always had a feeling with people.”

“Now that that’s out of the way, here’s my pitch,” she sat down across from me, hands clasped elegantly in her lap.

“There is a lack of truth in the world. So many mysteries we want to understand and solve, and history has held on to her conspiracies and secrets dearly. You know the saying, history is written by the winners? Well, Katherine, I really despise that saying. We know now, more than ever, that the winners usually aren’t noble, or good, or whatever they say they are - most people in power rise there on the backs of others, through conquest or subjugation. And we are still so very far from real truth, and community, and understanding how we’ve come to be how we are.

We have a way of communicating with the past - it’s very complex, but in the simplest terms we can send messages back and forth across time. It was extremely rudimentary, at first, and we realized how ungodly hard it is to communicate across time and space. Common language is just a start - you need to get someone willing to communicate, then figure out even when and where they are, then you need to understand what is direct and what isn’t, what is disrespectful or taboo for a given society - ah. I can see I don’t need to paint you a picture.

In any case, once we established the first contact, we realized that we can build portals. It requires a signpost on each end, a kind of dock, you might say. We can initiate a jump through time from here, but we need a specific physical component to connect to. And explaining that takes time, and having our contemporary contact on the other side find the necessary materials and build it takes time, not to mention building trust.

After we did it the first time, we found out ways to simplify it. Our contemporary contacts could come here, and help us build connections to other times as well. It takes a real specific type of odd-ball to be open to messages from the void yet functional enough to work with, you know, so even with our full funding and support, we have about six portal connections to show for two decades of work. Are you following me so far?”

I nodded mutely, too enthralled to speak.

“Good. On to the tricky bit - we can’t let anyone know about the technology we have. I’m sure you can imagine what some more… ambitious people with more ambiguous morals might do with it. What we are interested in is learning - about technological states, about communities, about the actual truth of the past. Oftentimes, we learn enough to plug some of the gaps in our own knowledge, leading to more and more technological advancements.

We need scientists, researchers, techies and all that they do, which I assure you I don’t fully understand myself, and very importantly - we need people who understand people. Who know or are quick to learn their beliefs, their ways, their languages - we need people who inspire trust. There’re thousands of people who are experts in their fields, but what we need most - that which is so much harder to find - are people who believe. Who believe in the truth, and believe in people, and refuse to play games. People with ambition for knowledge’s sake, not for power or money or fame. Nobody will ever know what you do here. Even the upstairs folks will think you just tinker around with financial records. You won’t become rich, here, either. We don’t need to worry about funding, but we reinvest most of our profits into further research. We do make sure our people are comfortable, though,” she gestured out towards the arena.

“Why?” I squeaked out. “I mean, why don’t you worry about funding and politics?” I asked, more confidently this time.

“Well, that’s where we bend the law, just a bit. Too many people ask questions when you bring research and advancements and knowledge they don’t like, or they want to exploit our sources, and so we’ve gotten quite good at obtaining leverage on some key figures. Stacked the cards a bit in our favor, if you like.”

“Blackmail. You blackmail them?” I was leaning as far forward as I could in the clutches of the armchair, not quite literally on the edge of my seat.

Victoria laughed. “I guess you could call it that. I call it a grey zone - We strive for objective truth, or as close as we can get to it, and we even employ multiple bias auditors to hold ourselves accountable to that. If we need to squeeze in some places to force certain people to share that truth, then yes - we blackmail them. We’re not exactly orthodox here, as you may have already noticed. Is that a problem for you?”

I shook my head vigorously.

“Not at all. Always had a problem with unjust authority, me. I don’t care what exactly I’ll do - all I need to know is, when can I start?”

After some impressive advocacy from Julia, Victoria had Miles drew up a contract starting from the very next week, officially. My first two weeks on the job were contractually defined as “recharge and recovery”, which basically just meant I got to sleep in, do whatever the hell I pleased, and enjoy myself, all while collecting my new salary. Victoria had been honest - it wasn’t exorbitant, but it beat my meager university earnings. For the first time in years, I didn’t struggle to get out of bed, and I actually felt at peace. A steady buzz of background exhilaration had been building up since I signed my name on the dotted line (actually, on about fifty dotted lines), but I had used my time off as prescribed.

Tomorrow would be my first real day, and that slight buzz has now escalated to full on, giddy, bouncing off the walls energy. It still felt like a dream, and I couldn’t wait to get up and get dressed. I honestly wasn’t sure I’d be able to sleep very well or even at all, and was going through my outfit and breakfast choices as the phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Hey, it’s David! Excited for tomorrow?”

“How did you get my number? And excited doesn’t even begin to cut it!”

“A magician never tells. Anyways, in honor of you joining us - Knock knock.”

“Who’s there?”

“Knock knock.”

I faked a sigh, “Seriously, who is it?”

David faked an even bigger sigh, “Seriously, knock knock. Do people not understand how doors work anymore?”

He hung up, and I dashed to open my front door.

I looked out expectantly, but was disappointed at the resounding lack of anything until my gaze fell to the floor.

There, covered in bows and ribbons, sat a huge bag of industrial baking flour. Confused, I picked up the card attached to it.

“Welcome to the circus. Enjoy the flowers ;)”

You know, I really think I am going to like it here.

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