The Accruals Of Fame

I’ve kinda’ always wanted my own destiny. It’s a delicious idea that you’re surrounded by a garden of delectable fruits, vegetables, and tubers - and somewhere amongst it is your perfect bite, one perfect collection of flavors and textures that’ll complete you.

You meet your match, and destiny is fulfilled. You become a complete organism in the universe. It’s all very Platonic. Frankly, I’ve always been more of a “fruit salad, yummy, yummy,” kinda’ gal.

As I’ve always understood it, my place isn’t as the fruit, nor the eater, I’m the path through it all.

Still, sometimes, I do dabble in the salad.

Right now I’m looking for a peach named Bob Pace. He’s sitting at a desk in a dark corridor of cubicles in the driest office complex I’ve ever had to stroll through.

Spreadsheets. His computer and workspace are filled with them.

Have you ever eaten a particularly scrumptious piece of food? It fills your mouth with a round, juicy, flavor that tickles your throat and gives you the chills.

That’s Bob's reaction to well-organized numbers.

It’s funny, I’m used to turning heads, but I’ve never felt so “seen” as I have when walking into this building. I’m not self-conscious. Well, in the strictest sense I’m infinitely conscious of myself, but I’m not concerned when others are aware of me. Yet, I’ve never been somewhere I can feel the million or so pinpricks of awareness that come from so many minds trying to unravel my nature.

Everyone wants to know my purpose, but of course, their awareness of me is fleeting. 

I’ve been aware of Bob for a long time. There he is doing his work. The work that will make him a legend.

In time.

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“...Nearly done chasing down those missing zeros,” Bob typed into the chat window on his workstation. As an accountant analyst, it was Bob’s job to chase numbers. Not exciting, but he found it entertaining. Good benefits and job security. Plus he was working for the CIA.

As an accountant analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency, Bob Pace’s specialty was “Accrual Accounting.” It meant understanding international tax law, and knowing when and how information was hidden within expenses and income. Currently, he was decoding the books of a narco-capitalist state operating shell companies within the U.S.

He was going to nail a foreign country for tax evasion.

He’d originally wanted to be a movie producer. A reminder of this was the grey, ceramic, shark-mouth “Jaws” coffee mug on his desk, a gift from his boss. Bob wasn’t certain, but he thought the coffee mug might be the result of an hours-long phone conversation Bob had with his brother Tom about “Jaws,” shortly after Bob had started this position. He imagined this talk was recorded and analyzed. Bob viewed the mug as a friendly threat-colored reminder that he was always being watched.

In this conversation with his brother, he’d admitted he was a bit jealous. Tom's successful dental practice allowed him to back several high-end restaurants in Minneapolis and Saint Paul. Tom was connected to something cool and hip, yet their mother could still brag that he was a doctor.

Bob’s family didn’t know he worked for the CIA. He didn’t have anything to show for his work.

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I’ve been waiting for Bob for a very, long time.

Most know me as Kavindra, but the most famous name associated with my work is Seshat. It’s complicated, but I make numbers work for the human race.

One of my first big accomplishments was Italian mathematician and Franciscan friar, Luca Pacioli. You know him as, “The father of accounting.” I was there for all 615 pages of his 1494 compendium, “Summa de Arithmetica Geometria Proportioni et Proportionalità.”

This also makes me the great-great-grandfather of double-entry bookkeeping, but that’s another knotty tale.

Today I meet Bob face to face and convince him that this desk in this dark office complex is his delicious destiny.

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An unusually bubbly woman wearing an oversized blue suit pulled the chair out of the empty cubical next to Bob. She sat down, set her legs to “criss-cross applesauce,” smiled wide, and stared at him without a word.

Bob caught this out of the corner of his eye. Puzzled, he turned towards her, “Can I help you?”

“Hi! Seen any good movies lately?” she asked with a wink and a point at his mug.

Bob stuttered. “I’m sorry? What? I’m sorry?” He started nodding his head. Somewhere in his Company training, he'd learned that keeping quiet while nodding your head got people to volunteer more information. He was obviously abusing that knowledge.

Bob felt like she’d caught him exiting the shower. He stayed quiet. He stopped nodding.

Now the two of them were staring at each other. She had a smile. He had a frown.

She leaned in towards Bob and whispered, “I was going to sit here in silence until you gave up all your secrets!” she then started to nod her head up and down.

“I’m sorry,” he said for the third time,“Do we have an appointment? I’m at a loss Ms…”

“Hi Bob. I’m Kavindra.” She paused as if that explained everything. “Okay,” she continued, "let's cut right to it." She exhaled. “You, Bob, perform a variety of specialized and complex record-keeping duties associated with processing and analyzing accounting transactions. You track accounts and compile fiscal data. Your specialty is accruals, an accounting method where revenue or expenses are recorded when a transaction occurs versus when payment is received or made. You’re so good at that, that what you do in the next year will change accounting for the next millennium. Yet… no one alive outside the CIA will know your name. That doesn’t sit well with you, but I need you to do this. Humanity needs you to sit at this desk and figure out accruals on a level no one has ever figured before.”

“Oh?” was his only response.

“I’m here to convince you that this workstation is where you most want to be. I’m here to find out what I can do to make you happy here.”

Bob stared at her.

She continued, “I know a bar where we can go, and get a booth. No crowds. An intimate setting where we can chat and increase our connection. I’ll explain everything,” She winked.

It hit him. Bob was now certain she was trying to flip him into being a foreign agent. Another Aldrich Ames. How ballsy and absurd that she would clumsily do this in the heart of Langly.

He decided to play along. He’d stop her. It would solidify his career.

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“I’ll give you an hour Kavindra. Let’s do it.”

“Fantastic!” is what I said, but I knew what he was thinking. I considered it a fun challenge. Now I just needed to get him focused on my goals instead of his. I tried to make the situation more positive, “This may be little consolation, but you will be a legend after you die.”

“Amongst CIA accountants?” he was skeptical.

“Well, possibly others, it all depends on how good you are at crossing rivers.”

“What does that mean?” he said.

I looked him in the eye and put it to him straight. “It means that no matter what you decide after we talk, you can be sure that death is so much more complicated than taxes.”