Career Fair: Raj
The air inside the Student Union was recycled, cool, and smelled faintly of desperation and dry-cleaned wool. It was the University’s annual Spring Career Fair, an arena where dreams went to be judged by recruiters in polo shirts.
Raj smoothed the front of his charcoal suit jacket for the hundredth time. He was a junior, a Computer Science major with a 3.8 GPA, and he was sweating. Not the gross, heavy sweat of physical exertion, but the thin, cold sheen of high-stakes anxiety. He had a portfolio tucked under his arm containing his resume, printed on heavy cream stock, and a list of three target companies. He was going to be a software engineer. He was going to build systems that changed the world. He was going to make his parents proud.
He spent three hours in the gauntlet. He shook hands until his grip felt weak. He recited his elevator pitch until the words "synergy," "full-stack," and "motivated self-starter" lost all meaning. By the time 5:00 PM hit and the recruiters began packing up their banners, Raj felt drained, but accomplished. He had secured two interviews.
"You’re on your way, Raj," he whispered to himself, loosening his tie as he pushed through the heavy double doors and out into the cooling evening air.
The campus was bathed in the orange glow of twilight. Most students were heading to the dining halls, but Raj needed to get back to his dorm to send follow-up emails. He took a shortcut behind the Engineering building, a path that skirted the edge of the old maintenance district. It was quieter here, the shadows stretching long and thin across the pavement.
"Raj."
The voice didn't come from behind him, or in front of him. It seemed to come from the shadows of an alleyway tucked between the brick facade of the Engineering hall and the loading dock of the chemistry lab.
Raj stopped, his dress shoes clicking on the concrete. He turned. "Hello? Someone there?"
"Come here, Raj. I have an opportunity for you."
It was a man’s voice, smooth, deep, but laced with a strange, oily texture. Raj hesitated. His instincts, sharpened by city living, told him to keep walking. But the voice had used his name. It sounded authoritative, like a recruiter he might have missed.
"I... I really need to get back to my dorm," Raj called out, clutching his portfolio tighter.
"It will only take a moment. It’s about your future."
Curiosity, that fatal flaw of the intellectual, got the better of him. Raj took a step toward the alley. Standing just inside the gloom was a figure wearing a hooded sweatshirt, obscured by the lack of streetlights. As Raj got closer, the man stepped forward. He wasn't holding a pamphlet or a business card.
He was holding a small, circular device.
"I don't think I, " Raj started to say, intending to politely decline and leave.
The man clicked a button.
Instantly, a vivid, crimson light erupted from the device. It wasn't a beam, but a spiral. A spinning, churning helix of red light that seemed to occupy Raj’s entire field of vision. It pulsed with a rhythmic frequency that matched the beating of Raj’s heart.
Thump-thump. Whirrr. Thump-thump. Whirrr.
"Look at it, Raj," the man said. His voice was no longer oily; it was commanding, echoing inside Raj’s skull. "Look at the spiral."
Raj’s mouth opened to protest, to scream, but the signal from his brain to his jaw was intercepted. His eyes were locked on the red spin. It was beautiful. It was terrifying. It was the only thing that existed.
"You are so tired, aren't you, Raj?" the man whispered, stepping closer. "So tired of the suit. So tired of the shower. So tired of trying to be smart."
Raj felt a wave of exhaustion crash over him, heavier than any all-nighter he had ever pulled. His shoulders slumped. The portfolio, containing his resume and his dreams, slipped from his fingers and hit the dirty alley floor.
"That's it," the man soothed. "Drop the weight. Ambition is so heavy. Intelligence is a burden. You don't want to carry it anymore."
"I... I have... interviews," Raj mumbled. His voice sounded thick, slurred. He felt drunk, but without the euphoria. Just a heavy, warm fog rolling into his mind.
"No interviews," the man said, moving the spiral closer to Raj’s face. "No more pretending. You are a simple boy, Raj. You like simple things."
As the spiral spun, Raj felt a strange physical reaction. The anxiety that had kept his body tight and rigid all day began to unravel. The knot in his stomach loosened violently.
Gurgle.
A loud, wet sound erupted from Raj’s abdomen. He would have been mortified normally. He was a gentleman. He held things in. But the red light seemed to bypass his social conditioning.
"Let it go, Raj," the man commanded. "Civilized people hold it in. Smart people hold it in. You aren't smart. You're just a body. A worker."
Raj’s eyes rolled back slightly as his sphincter relaxed. A long, fluttering fart ripped through his dress pants. It was loud, echoing slightly in the narrow alley.
Prrrt-buh-buh-buh.
The smell hit him a second later, hot, sulfurous, and stale. The smell of nervousness and cafeteria food digesting poorly. Normally, Raj would have flushed red and apologized.
"Breathe it in," the man said. "Smells like you, doesn't it? Smells like your true self."
Raj inhaled. The stench filled his nose. Under the influence of the red spiral, the disgust didn't register. Instead, a wave of pleasure hit him. It felt good to be gross. It felt good to stop caring.
"Good," the man said. "Now, step deeper. Come into the dark."
Raj’s feet moved automatically. He shuffled forward, his expensive dress shoes scuffing against the grime of the alley. He stepped right over his fallen portfolio, crushing his resume under his heel.
The man kept the spiral fixed on Raj’s eyes. "You spend so much time showering, Raj. So much time on deodorant. Cologne. Why? Who are you trying to impress?"
"Recruiters..." Raj slurred, a line of drool escaping the corner of his lip. "Future... employers..."
"No," the man corrected. "You don't need to impress anyone. You are invisible. You are the guy behind the counter. The guy behind the counter doesn't need to smell nice. He just needs to stand there."
The hypnosis deepened. The stranger began to restructure Raj’s reality. He assaulted Raj’s memories of his coursework.
Data Structures and Algorithms. The spiral spun faster. The complex trees and graphs in Raj’s mind dissolved into static. They were replaced by images of rows of candy bars. Snickers. Twix. KitKat.
Linear Algebra. The equations blurred. They turned into prices. $1.99. $2.50. Buy two, get one free.
Raj’s body temperature began to rise. He was sweating profusely now, the heat trapped by his suit. He felt sticky, oily. He started to undo his tie, ripping it off and throwing it into a puddle. He unbuttoned his collar, exposing his neck.
"It’s hot," Raj moaned.
"Sweat is good," the man said. "Let the stink out. You’ve been holding that in too. The smell of a dropout. The smell of failure. It’s sweet, isn't it?"
Raj lifted his arms. Dark, wet patches had formed under the armpits of his expensive dress shirt. The sharp, acrid tang of severe body odor began to waft up. It was the smell of a man who had given up.
"I... I stink," Raj giggled. It was a vacuous, empty sound.
"You do," the man agreed. "And you love it. You don't want to be clean. Clean is for college boys. You're not a college boy anymore, are you?"
"No..." Raj shook his head, his eyes never leaving the red swirl. "Not... college boy."
"Who are you, Raj?"
"I'm..." Raj struggled. His brain was grasping for the identity the spiral was feeding him. "I'm... the clerk."
"That's right. You're the Indian clerk at the convenience store. That’s all you are. That’s all you can be. It’s what everyone expects, isn't it? Why fight it?"
"Why fight it..." Raj echoed.
Another bubble of gas built up in Raj’s gut. He didn't even try to hold it this time. He pushed. A loud, trumpet-like blast erupted from him, followed by a thick, musky cloud. He laughed, a low, throaty chuckle. He felt his intelligence draining away with the gas. Every time he broke a social rule, a piece of his ambition died.
The man moved closer, his voice dropping to a hypnotist's drone. "You don't know Java. You don't know Python. You know how to operate the Slurpee machine. You know how to change the syrup. It’s sticky. You like being sticky."
"Sticky..." Raj murmured. He ran a hand through his hair, messing up the carefully styled gel until it stood up in greasy tufts.
"You dropped out, Raj. Tell me you dropped out."
"I... dropped out," Raj said, the reality solidifying in his mind. The memories of his 3.8 GPA were being locked away, hidden behind a mental wall of concrete. In their place, false memories were planted. Failing classes. Skipping lectures to smoke cheap cigarettes. The shame of disappointment turning into the apathy of acceptance.
"You need a job," the man said. "You can't go back to the dorms. You don't belong there. You belong in the store."
"The store..." Raj swayed on his feet. The smell in the alley was overpowering now, a mix of rotting garbage and Raj’s own unchecked biological functions. He was marinating in it.
"Take off the jacket," the man ordered. "It’s too fancy for a clerk."
Raj fumbled with the jacket, peeling it off and dropping it into the muck next to his resume. He was just in his sweat-stained white shirt and dress pants now. He looked disheveled, unhinged.
"Un-tuck the shirt," the man commanded.
Raj obeyed. He pulled the shirt tails out. They were wrinkled and damp.
"You’re just a stereotype, Raj," the man said cruelly, but to Raj, it sounded like a lullaby. "A cliche. A straight-forward, simple stereotype. No more complexity. No more depth. Just a guy who asks 'Debit or Credit?' and smells like old onions. Does that feel easier?"
"So much easier," Raj sighed. His posture changed. He slouched. His jaw went slack. The bright, intelligent spark in his dark eyes was gone, replaced by a dull, glazed look of permanent boredom and subservience.
"You are going to serve customers. You are going to restock the coolers. You are going to mop the floor with dirty water. And you are never going to code again."
"Never code..." Raj whispered. The concept of coding felt alien to him now. Like magic he couldn't understand.
"What is your name?"
"Raj."
"What do you do?"
Raj paused. He looked down at his sweat-stained shirt. He felt the rumble of another fart brewing. He felt the sticky sweat on his neck. He felt the utter lack of ambition in his heart.
"I work... at the 7/11," Raj said firmly. "I work the night shift."
"Excellent."
The man snapped his fingers. The red spiral vanished.
Raj stood there, blinking. But the confusion didn't return. The fear didn't return. He just stood there, slouching, scratching his stomach through his shirt, feeling perfectly content in the dark, smelly alley.
Headlights swept across the brick wall. A white van pulled up to the curb at the end of the alley. The side door slid open.
"Your ride is here, Raj," the man said, gesturing toward the vehicle. "Time to go to work."
Raj didn't ask where the van was going. He didn't check for his phone or his wallet. He just nodded slowly. He shuffled toward the van, his gait lazy and shuffling, the walk of a man who had nowhere to be but behind a counter.
He climbed into the back of the van. There were no seats, just crates of soda and boxes of chips. He sat down on a crate of Cheetos.
As the van pulled away, taking him away from the university, away from his degree, and away from his future, Raj leaned back against the cold metal wall. He felt a trickle of sweat roll down his ribs.
The stranger slammed the door shut.
Twenty minutes later, the van screeched to a halt in front of a brightly lit 7-Eleven on the edge of town. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting a sickly yellow glow on the pavement.
Raj hopped out of the van. He felt a rush of adrenaline. He was home.
He walked toward the glass doors. His reflection caught in the window. He didn't see a high-achieving student anymore. He saw a clerk. His hair was messy, his shirt was unbuttoned and stained, and he had a sheen of oily sweat on his face.
He pushed the door open. Ding-dong.
The sound was music to his ears. He walked behind the counter, naturally taking his place by the register. He looked at the rows of cigarettes, the lottery tickets, the spinning racks of hot dogs.
He felt a familiar itch under his arm. He lifted his arm, burying his nose deep into his own armpit. He inhaled the thick, spicy, heavy scent of his own body odor, the smell of a man who dropped out, who works long hours, who belongs here.
It was the best smell in the world.
Raj pulled his nose out of his pit, looked at the empty store, and grinned.
"Thank you, come again," he practiced to the empty store.
