Though the Repository is new on the high street, it has been set up in what used to be an old bank and the old, stone Victorian facade lends an air of grandeur and permanence to the branch. The suggestion that it is a mundane financial institution is continued as you thick wooden door swings open to emit you. The gilded, ornate ceilings have been maintained, as have the rows of tellers desks against the far wall behind a pane of thick glass. A queue of people wait to be served at them, and there is a quiet, professional air of business.
As you step into the queue, you notice an assortment of pamphlets advertising the Repository's services. 'Ask about our long term hair loans', says one. You flick it open in interest. For a cost of just 12 days per year over a 20 year period, the Repository guarantees a lifetime of somebody else's hair. Alternatively if a customer has a head of hair that they just aren't doing anything with, they can agree to trade it in for between 0.5 to 8 days per year of the loan, dependent on the quality of hair.
'Till number 7 please'. The next in the queue moves to the teller that sits beneath an illuminated number 7. He is an old man, crooked and bent, and moving with agonizing creaks of his arthritic knees, yet he wears the jeans, hoodie and sneakers of a much younger man. The teller and him talk quietly to one another through the glass panel for some minutes, until the customer is instructed to place his left hand in a slot in the front of the desk and enter his pin.
Slowly the man keys in his pin number with the swollen, gouty fingers of his right hand and presses enter. There is no dramatic flash of light or fanfare as the transaction completes, only the subtle silvering and shedding of his hair, the creak as his osteopenic spine bends a little more. You suspect he has deposited about six months. He peers closer with fading eyesight at the teller counting out a dozen of so crisp, bank notes before collecting them with trembling hands and stuffing them into his pockets.
There are of course those who do not manage the services provided by the Repository very well. Not through any fault of the Repository of course, they are always people with pre-existing problems, be it gambling or drugs. People who lack (or traded away) the self-control to avoid high interest loans of beauty or intelligence, or the work-ethic to keep up repayments.
'Till number 5 please'. It is your turn. You step up to the counter. The tellers stares apathetically, his voice a monotone. "Good morning, welcome to the Repository. How can we help you today?"
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