The Importance of User Research

Scritch scritch.

The Accountant’s fat fingers tugged at the fibers on her fleshy face.

“Ffffrrrrrmmmmmmm,” she said, extending the sound for half a minute. She stared at Brinjal and kept rubbing at her chin hairs.

“Hmm?” Brinjal said.

“Ffffffrrrrrmmmmmmm!!!” she said again, more forcefully this time.

Was that an admonition? A reprimand? A throat-clearing?

She almost laughed in her face. The Accountant seemed to be swimming in the essence of the letter F. F reminded Brinjal of muffled things. Big layers of soft seaweed. The word soft, pronounced without the final T. Flouncy, bouncy round things, filled to full with sand. Like the Accountant’s torso, bulbous and prominent and wrapped in cloth. And finally, the F reminded Brinjal of that thick hair that sprouted on the underside of these women’s heads, all around their chins and mouths.

Aquatics didn’t have that hair. Sometimes they had cilia or barbels. But those were usually just a few strands. These women had hundreds, thousands of them, all sprouting around their head. It was unnerving.

Concentrating on the Accountant’s chin hairs let Brinjal keep her mind off what she was here to do. She mentally scoffed when remembering the instruction. “Primp, pose, present for judgment,” was what the woman below had said. “Don’t worry,” she had added. “And don’t flinch. You’ll be able to breathe fine, even without the water.”

Well, that was obvious enough. Otherwise she would have died by now. Brinjal had scoffed at that. Like most civilized people, she had lived her whole life underwater, and now that it was over, she was quite put out that her afterlife seemed to consist of air only. It was a bit unnerving, as if the afterlife were designed for women and their ilk, with aquatics just an afterthought.

The moment she died, Brinjal had been transported instantly to a cave. The first and most obvious thing she noticed was that she was in the air. There were small capped hutches around her gills, and when she tried to breathe, water gurgled in those hutches. She was laying on a moist floor, so at least there was some liquid in here. It was hard to shift her body around to investigate more. Everything felt so heavy in the air.

The temperature of the air was quite pleasant. But it had an odd effect. Rather than the comforting inward pressure Brinjal felt from the water, the air did the opposite. The air pulled at her skin, stretching out her scales in all directions. It was as if, after a lifetime together, all her body parts had had enough and were trying to go their separate ways.

The other creatures around her seemed to sense it too. She managed to flop her body into a position where she could look around more easily, and she could see aquatics everywhere. They too were laying helpless on the ground, but at least able to breathe with those same small hutches on their gills.

Apart from confirming that she wasn’t alone, she paid these aquatics no further mind. They were like any basic fish anywhere. Not really unique or beautiful or particularly intelligent. She could tell, because some of them just panicked immediately, and spent the first hour of their afterlife moaning and crying. She didn’t begrudge them this – to lose the great freedom of movement and become like a coral was a great tragedy.

She tried to focus on keeping her body in check. Her stomach seemed to constantly wish to escape downward, so she sucked in and kept it tight. “Now is not the time to fall to pieces!” she scolded herself. Her stomach seemed dutifully subdued.

Thinking about her situation, though, Brinjal kept getting hot around the gills. There were only a few experiences in her life that were as demeaning as this. But then, she guessed this wasn’t really her life anymore. The fundamental oddness of the situation, though, wasn’t too concerning to her. It was odder than most things she had experienced in her life—but only slightly odder. You can’t make your way as an aquatic without being immobilized at one point or another. But usually if you got stuck, it was at least in the blessed water...

After an hour, things changed. No new fish had arrived in the cave (and indeed, Brinjal didn’t know how she had arrived here in the first place). But after an hour, a pair of figures came through the shimmering portal at the far end of the cave. They were upright, walking… women! Two of them came through. She could hear the other fish cowering and whimpering.

The women picked up the fish closest to the door, two of them together, and carried it through the portal. They did not do anything different.

Brinjal had woken up in an area of the cave that seemed furthest from the portal. Every five minutes, the two women came back and took the next fish through. Never made any commentary, or even much noise. Just came in, picked up one of those wretched fish—which were usually too terrified to react—and took them through.

Brinjal watched this for a while, and then calculated how much time it would take to get to her. She decided to take a nap for 48 minutes.

48 minutes later, she woke up, and the women came through and picked up the fish next to her. On their next entry, five minutes later, she had no doubt. The focus of the two women was quite intense. It was like realizing that the eye of an octopus or a shark is on you, when you get that sudden jolt of energy, even if you can’t tell where the predator was coming from. It was an electrifying sort of a summons.

She couldn’t move easily as they approached, but she at least tried to change her position to something more dignified. If this was the last bit of her consciousness, she certainly would at least act her age.

They picked her up with those rough hands, and she glanced at them surreptitiously. They had these long strands on their heads. One of them was taller and broader and had little small curly bits of hair, and the other was lankier, with long and flowing hair. She turned her gaze to the portal. She couldn’t see past it until they entered it, and when her eyes cleared, there was another cavern beyond, with a sort of platform in the middle, and another woman standing by it. What were all these women doing here?

She was placed onto that platform, and her two escorts melted away, beyond her zone of sight. The woman next to the platform looked at Brinjal and began moving her mouth. There was a delay, and then ideas, words, and thoughts appeared in her head. “You’re the last one,” she said.

“Me?” asked Brinjal. The woman seemed to understand.

“Yes, and we’re short on time, so please hurry up.” She kept jerking her angular hands about everywhere. But then her eyes linked to Brinjal’s. “Wait, you know what manner of creature I am?”

Brinjal rolled her eyes. “Of course. You are a woman. Your people live on land. And what is there to be surprised about? I’ve only been idling away while your colleagues took away all the others in that cave one by one.”

The woman seemed shocked. “I’m not a woman, I’m a m— Oh, it doesn’t matter. At least you know about us.”

Brinjal nodded tightly. She wasn’t going to give this woman the satisfaction of knowing more in this situation.

“Right,” continued the woman. “So you are about to be given your Accounting. This has never happened before here. We’re trying to launch this service for the recently passed people of the southwestern sea. And! We’ve managed to pull in a Celestial Accountant for you! Isn’t it wonderful?” she grinned here and showed Brinjal her teeth. It was unnerving. “But we only have him for a day. You are to present yourself to him so he can read your story.”

Brinjal bristled at this. “What story? And what qualifies this Accountant to do this? Is she a fish of class and color at least?”

The human stared at her. “He’s a Celestial Accountant. He’s not a fish. He will enter your story into the Glorious Ledger, and thereby determine your next steps.”

Brinjal didn’t care one bit about the last part. “She’s not a fish! What is the point of all this, then?” Brinjal demanded. “Is she one of you women? How can she possibly know anything of my life?”

The woman strode up to Brinjal with her right-angled limbs and seized her by the fins. “You fool,” she whispered. “Don’t talk so loudly. The Celestial Accountant can read the deeds etched on your very soul. No one else can do so but a chartered and duly appointed Celestial Accountant.” She paused and looked upward, eyeing a hole in the ceiling. “And like all Accountants, he is jealous of his profession. Don’t disrespect!”

Not only would she have to go be judged by some sort of classless non-fish, but she was being physically handled by a woman. This would not stand. She eyed the woman. “And if I do disrespect?”

The woman stepped back and waved her hands. “You lose the privilege of existence. The Glorious Ledger determines who gets to get their choice of eternity, and who’s consciousness is snuffed out, gulped away.”

Brinjal pondered this. Well, it was all still very presumptuous. But as it was, she was stuck here. She had had to submit herself for worse before. Like that time with the betta fish. She shuddered.

Perhaps sensing her mood, the woman said. “Get yourself ready, find a way to open your body as widely as possible, and allow the inspection to occur. The Celestial Accountant has the power to read your story on your physical body. Primp, pose, present for judgment. Don’t worry, and don’t flinch. You’ll be able to breathe fine, even without the water.”

Brinjal scoffed. She had heard enough. “Which way do I go,” she asked?

She pointed up, through the hole in the top of the cave. “Up there. Now stay still” She stood back and pressed something. The platform she was on rotated slightly, so that Brinjal’s tailfins were pointed downward and her head upward. The platform met with another plank of some cold material on four sides of her, pressing her inward, but gently so. It was a welcome help to have a bit more inward pressure on her body, even if it wasn’t as all-encompassing as the water.

The woman bent over Brinjal, adjusted some of the platforms around her, and Brinjal felt more secure within this air. The woman moved back and pressed something again. There was an odd noise, and Brinjal felt herself being moved up into the air. “Good luck,” the woman shouted over the noise.

Brinjal didn’t respond. She had better things to focus on than some hopeless woman. She was headed straight to another shimmering portal, this time in the roof of this cavern. She went up and up in the air, and her body seemed to want to spill out down and down. But the platform and their vises remained strong.

Moving through the portal, something unexpected happened. She wasn’t pushed all the way through, and the platforms seemed to recede slightly down her body. She was still being held upward, but she had more freedom of movement. The platforms held the bottom half of her body, and so the top half could move around more freely.

She was now in a much smaller space. It was rectilinear. There were many objects in here that lacked the organic roundness of most things she had encountered before. Sharp edges, straight lines, and harsh corners abounded. But there was one exception – the creature before her who could only be the Celestial Accountant.

She was leaning over a desk, large and hairy, scribbling in some inscrutably small book. There were two birds (birds!) perched each of her shoulders, also peering forward. The one on the left shoulder was deep green, and the one on the right was ribald blue, both of their colors sparkling like glimmering scales. Every few seconds they cacawed or snapped at each other over the back of the Accountant’s neck, but mostly they kept their gaze on the desk.

Brinjal waited there, taking in the scene. She watched them in silence for a minute and a half, and no one paid her any mind. You would think the noise from the raising platforms would have attracted some attention.

A minute or two passed. She began to feel impatient. She was supposed to be waiting here for yet another of these woman creatures, and now she had to wait on birds? So she ruffled her fins gently, targeting at the Accountant to make a waving noise, the way she would to quietly attract anyone’s attention in the water. She had no idea if it would work in the air.

The Accountant paid no heed – could she really not be aware that Brinjal was there? – but one of the birds perked up. The green one. First, it rustled itself up, and pecked at its partner. Then, cocking its eye at her, it paused for a moment, and then squawked out loud. “Another one, yaaarp, we have another one!”

The other bird looked up and joined in the call right away. “Another one, yaaarp!” they screamed in unison, “We have another one!” And still the Accountant didn’t move her head.

Brinjal was sick of this. All these uncivilized people, making her wait! She remembered the last instruction of the woman downstairs. “Primp, pose, present for judgment.” Well, if this Accountant was supposed to be reading her body for her achievements, she may as well make it easy. In one fluid movement, and struck both of her fins wide with a thwack of flesh, turned her head to the side, and let loose a loud sigh.

With that sound, she could see with the one eye facing forward. The Accountant tilted her head up to match her birds. She heard her push out her seat from under the desk, heard her grunt as she heaved herself up and around, heard the desk groan as she leaned her weight on it. She kept her fins outstretched and waited.

Scritch scritch.

The Accountant’s fat fingers tugged at the fibers on her fleshy face.

“Ffffrrrrrmmmmmmm,” she said, extending the sound for half a minute. She stared at Brinjal and kept rubbing at her chin hairs.

“Hmm?” Brinjal said.

“Ffffffrrrrrmmmmmmm!!!” she said again, more forcefully this time.

“What?” Brinal asked.

“Nothing!” she responded, with a rumbly voice.

“Nothing!” echoed the blue bird.

Another couple minutes passed. “What is taking you so long?” she demanded.

“I’m reviewing the records!” she responded, a bit petulant. “Didn’t the man explain this to you below?”

“Reviewing! Records!” chirped the green bird.

“And how long is this going to take you?” she asked.

“Hard to say…”

“What? Don’t you do this often?”

She sounded sheepish. “Well, of course I do it often!”

She waited for another two minutes of tense silence. “Have you gotten enough of a look?” she demanded. “Is this why you got into this profession, so you could conduct these inspections of people’s bodies whenever you’d like?” She spoke coldly. “So is this enough for you?” She stretched out her fins again. “Do I pass muster?”

Brinjal was pleased to detect a pleading note in the Accountant’s voice. “Please, madam! I get no pleasure out of this! It is my job to ensure your deeds are summed and tabulated according to the great Objective Science of my Storied Profession!”

“Objective Science!” said the green bird.

“Storied Profession!” said the blue.

She could hear the self-importance in the Accountant’s voice. “You know what I think? I think that’s a lie. How does a woman get certified to be able to judge aquatics? What in your life has prepared you for this?”

“Madam,” she said, now irritable, “if you do not allow me to get on with my job, I will be unable to render your judgment, and you will have to speak with my superiors.”

Brinjal got a sudden suspicion. “How much experience do you have reviewing the bodies of aquatics?” she asked.

“Enough,” she retorted.

“When’s the last time you’ve passed judgment on an aquatic?” Brinjal persisted.

“Well, the various people in the queue before you,” she said.

“And before them?”

She said something imperceptible.

“What was that?” she demanded.

“Zero!” shouted the green bird. “Zilch!” The Accountant slapped at the green bird, who fluttered angrily.

“I haven’t worked in the aquatic catalogue before this,” she admitted.

“I knew it!” declared Brinjal, triumphant. “You are sitting here, taking on all these airs, and you don’t even know your way around an aquatic body. What did you do for all those poor souls before me? There must have been about twenty before me! How many of them were marked as good, on balance?”

She muttered something again and crossed her arms.

“Say again?” she asked.

“Zero!” shouted the blue bird gleefully. “Zilch!” The Accountant tried to shush it as well, and it too batted her away with its wings.

“Really? You’re going to tell me that none of them had done enough good deeds to pass your test?” Brinjal asked

“Well, they failed the rubric,” she said. She was closing in on herself and tightening her body.

“And has this rubric ever been tested on aquatics before?” She knew she was getting at the heart of it now.

“No.” She was hanging her head now. “We are trying to provide a service to a population that has been bereft of the wonders of the afterlife until now.”

Brinjal couldn’t believe it. “We were fine before you came along! You think you’re giving us something special, and you haven’t even empathized enough to know how that experience might be for us.” She paused. “It might be a good service, maybe even a great one. But not as it stands.”

The Accountant just scowled and looked at the ground.

Brinjal dropped her fins. “This has a simple solution. I formally refuse to allow you to continue your inspection. Take me to your superiors.”

The green parrot chirped up. “She’s got you there, sir.”

“Shut it!” said the Accountant.

Jamjo knew he had passed away. One minute, he was swimming past an open cave, the next there was a sharp feeling in his gut, and he knew something had got him. He didn’t feel too bothered. Everyone has to meet their end someday.

What he didn’t know was where he was. It seemed he was in a lovely clear cave, with soft, gently waving water. He was swimming about, and there were caches of food in the corner, filled with some of his favorite treats.

There were other fish in the cave too, and they were gorging themselves as well. “Are we, dead?” he asked one hesitantly.

“Yep!” said the other. “Or at least, everyone here seems to be.”

“Then what’s all this food?”

“Who knows! May as well enjoy it while it lasts, though.”

Jamjo agreed. He tucked in, and kept eating away. It seemed the cave was busy. A name would ring out every now and then, and a fish would leave through the opening.

After he had finished up his meal, he was resting quietly, swimming lazily through the water, when he heard his name come up. He perked up, and did as the others had done. He swam through the opening, enjoying the feel of the clear, warm water through his fins.

Through the hole was another room, with a very aristocratic looking fish inside of it. She had a series of kelp paper organized neatly in one corner.

She beckoned him to the other, where the light dappled gently on some soft sand. He swam over, and they settled face to face.

“My name is Brinjal,” she began. “I’m the designated Celestial Accountant for our area. And it’s my job to make sure that you get to where you’re going.”

Jamjo settled in, and his Accountant talked with him until he understood. And then some.