Tomás adjusted the collar of his button-down shirt for the tenth time, catching his reflection in the glass door of the Student Union building. He looked sharp. He looked professional. He looked like a graphic designer.
At twenty-one, Tomás was a junior at the university, carrying a pristine black leather portfolio case that held the sum total of his creative life. Inside were mock-ups for branding kits, sleek typography experiments, and UI/UX designs that he was sure would land him a summer internship at a top firm in San Francisco. He smelled of shower gel, deodorant, and a hint of expensive cologne he’d bought specifically for this day.
The Career Fair had been exhausting. For three hours, he had navigated crowds of anxious students, shaking hands, handing out resumes printed on heavy cardstock, and pitching his "personal brand." His brain was buzzing with buzzwords: synergy, minimalism, vector scalability, user retention.
"Great work, Tomás," a recruiter from a tech startup had told him. "You’re articulate. You’ve got a bright future."
Tomás smiled at the memory as he pushed through the doors and stepped out into the cool evening air. The sun had already set, and the campus streetlights were flickering to life. He was tired, but it was a good tired. The kind of fatigue that came from chasing a dream and catching up to it.
He began the walk back to his dorm, his dress shoes clicking rhythmically on the pavement. He loosened his tie, letting out a long sigh of relief. He was going to go back to his room, order a pizza, and play video games until 2:00 AM. He deserved it.
His path took him past the engineering annex, a brutalist concrete building that cast long, deep shadows. As he passed the mouth of a service alley, a narrow, unlit gap between the annex and the generator housing, a voice drifted out from the darkness.
It wasn't a question. It was a statement, calm and authoritative.
Tomás stopped mid-stride. He clutched his portfolio tighter to his chest. He didn't know anyone who would be lurking in an alleyway, and the voice didn't sound like any of his professors.
"Hello?" Tomás called out, his voice wavering slightly. "Who's there?"
"Come here, Tomás," the voice said. It was smooth, deep, and oddly resonant. "I have an opportunity for you. Better than the ones inside."
Tomás frowned. "I’m good, thanks. I’m heading home."
He turned to leave, his instincts screaming at him to run. But then he heard the click of a shoe on pavement, and a figure stepped just to the edge of the light. It was a man, tall and broad, wearing a nondescript grey windbreaker. He looked unremarkable, except for the object in his hand.
"Just look," the man said.
He held up a device. It looked like a modified flashlight, but instead of a beam, the lens was a swirling, digital display.
A brilliant, pulsating red spiral erupted from the device. It wasn't just a light; it seemed to possess physical weight, slamming into Tomás’s retinas with the force of a physical blow.
Tomás gasped. His feet rooted to the spot. He wanted to look away, to run, to scream, but his optic nerves were locked onto the spinning crimson coil.
"No," Tomás whispered, but his voice sounded miles away.
"Come closer, boy," the man commanded.
Tomás’s legs moved on their own. He took one stiff step, then another, moving off the sidewalk and into the shadows of the alley. The sounds of the campus, the distant traffic, the laughing students, faded into a muffled hum, as if he were underwater. There was only the man, the dark, and the red spiral.
"That’s it," the man soothed, guiding Tomás deeper into the alley until they were hidden behind a dumpster. "Focus on the red. Deep red. Ripe red."
Tomás stood rigid, his eyes wide and unblinking. The spiral was mesmerizing. It spun counter-clockwise, dragging his consciousness down into its center.
"You are confused," the man said, his voice echoing in Tomás’s skull. "You are stressed. All that thinking. All those words. All that design. It’s heavy, isn't it?"
"Heavy..." Tomás mumbled. The word felt thick in his mouth.
Tomás’s fingers went slack. The expensive leather portfolio, the sum of his collegiate career, slipped from his hand and hit the dirty alley floor with a dull thud.
"You don't need it," the man said. "Look at the spiral. Round and round. Like a berry on the vine. Round and round."
Tomás felt a wave of dizziness. His high-level thoughts were being scrambled. The concepts of vectors and pixels were dissolving, replaced by a thrumming red static.
"You are a clean boy," the man observed, stepping closer. He sniffed the air near Tomás. "Cologne. Soap. Ambition. It smells... artificial."
Tomás blinked sluggishly. "I... I study..."
"Shhh," the man cut him off. He moved the light closer, filling Tomás’s entire field of vision with the rotating red geometry. "You study nothing. You listen. You obey. Your brain is too full. We need to empty it. We need to make room for the truth."
The hypnosis began to take a physiological toll. As Tomás’s conscious mind retreated, his autonomic nervous system began to relax. The tension in his shoulders dropped. The tightness in his gut unspooled.
Tomás’s stomach made a loud, wet noise. In his normal state, he would have been mortified. But under the red light, he just stared.
"Relax," the man crooned. "Let it all go. The manners. The social pressure. The holding in. You are not a college boy anymore. You are a creature of the earth."
Tomás felt a pressure build in his lower abdomen. The fear was evaporating, replaced by a heavy, dopey warmth. He didn't want to fight it. Fighting was hard. The spiral was easy.
A short, sharp fart escaped Tomás.
The man smiled in the dark. "Good. Let the gas out. Let the intelligence out. They are the same thing. Just hot air."
Tomás’s jaw went slack. A small line of drool escaped the corner of his mouth. "Hot... stinky... air..."
"That’s right. Look at the spiral. You are getting sleepy. You are getting heavy. You are getting stinky."
The session continued. The man kept the light steady, his voice a constant drone of commands that rewired the neural pathways of Tomás’s brain.
"What is your name?" the man asked.
"Tomás," he answered, though it took a second to remember.
"Yes... student. Graphic... design."
"No," the man corrected firmly. The spiral spun faster, flashing with a strobe effect that shattered Tomás’s concentration. "Look deeper. You are not a student. School is for smart boys. Are you a smart boy?"
Tomás tried to access the part of his brain that knew history and math, but he found only fog. He felt a sudden urge to scratch himself. He reached up and scratched his head messily, messing up his styled hair.
"You are not a smart boy," the man confirmed. "You are a working boy. A physical boy. Smell yourself, Tomás."
The suggestion hit him. Tomás felt a sudden spike in body heat. The stress of the hypnosis was making him sweat profusely. The crisp dress shirt began to dampen at the armpits. The expensive cologne was rapidly being overpowered by the sour, pungent tang of fear-sweat and musk.
"You smell like work," the man said. "You smell like a long day in the sun. Do you like that smell?"
Tomás breathed in. The smell of his own body odor was rising, thick and oniony. Normally, he would run for a shower. Now, under the influence of the red spiral, the scent triggered a dopamine release. It smelled familiar. It smelled right.
"Smells... strong," Tomás grunted. His diction was slipping.
"Strong like a picker," the man said. "Relax your gut, Tomás. Empty out the college degree."
Tomás’s stomach churned violently. The hypnosis was loosening his sphincters, bypassing his social conditioning entirely.
A long, wet, thunderous fart ripped through the alley, echoing off the brick walls. It smelled awful, like sulfur and rotten eggs, but Tomás didn't blush. He didn't apologize.
It was a low, empty-headed sound. "Heh. Oops."
"Don't say oops," the man commanded. "It’s natural. Pickers fart. Pickers sweat. Pickers work. You don't need words. You need to work."
The man reached down and picked up the portfolio. He opened it, revealing the beautiful designs.
"What is this?" the man asked, holding up a logo for a coffee shop.
Tomás squinted at it. The lines didn't make sense anymore. He couldn't remember what 'typography' meant.
"Paper," Tomás said simply.
"Trash," the man corrected. He tore the page in half.
Tomás watched the paper tear. He felt nothing. No regret. Just a blank, bovine acceptance.
"Your English is too fancy," the man said, spinning the light again. "Too many big words. We need to strip that down. You are a simple boy. You speak simple. You speak only what is needed for the field."
The man began to chant, his voice syncing with the pulsing light. "Forget the essay. Forget the lecture. Forget the syntax. You are a No-Sabo kid now, Tomás. Just basic needs. Basic work. Basic smells."
Tomás’s eyes rolled back slightly. His brain felt like it was being scrubbed with steel wool.
Tomás swayed. He felt a bead of sweat roll down his nose. He lifted his arm, exposing a massive wet stain on his shirt. The smell of B.O. was intense now, a cloud of musk surrounding him.
"I... I pick," Tomás mumbled. The accent was changing. The sharp, collegiate diction was softening, broadening, becoming clumsy.
"Berries," Tomás said. A smile spread across his face, a vacuous, simple grin. "Red berries. Like the light."
Pfffft-put-put. Another series of farts bubbled out of him, vibrating against his dress slacks. He wiggled his hips, enjoying the sensation, completely unburdened by shame.
An hour passed. Or maybe a minute. Time had no meaning in the alley.
Tomás was no longer standing straight. He was hunched over, his posture loose and ape-like. His shirt was untucked, stained with sweat and grime from leaning against the dumpster. His tie was gone, the man had removed it, and Tomás hadn't even noticed.
He looked less like a graphic design student and more like someone who had been lost in the wilderness for weeks.
The man turned off the red spiral.
Tomás blinked, his eyes adjusting to the darkness. But the intelligence didn't return to them. They remained glassy, dilated, and dull.
"Hola, Tomás," the man said.
Tomás looked at the man. He scratched his butt openly, digging his hand into the fabric of his pants.
"Hola," Tomás grunted. "Where... where truck?"
"The truck is coming," the man said. "Are you ready to work?"
"Sí," Tomás nodded vigorously. "I work hard. I strong."
"And what about school?" the man pointed to the university building looming above them.
Tomás looked at the building. He squinted, as if trying to recall a dream. "School? No. School for... for rich boss. I no boss. I worker."
He lifted his arm and buried his nose deep into his armpit. He inhaled loudly, snorting up the stench of his own fermented sweat. It was powerful, spicy, and stale. To his rewired brain, it was the best smell in the world. It smelled like his destiny.
"Stinky," Tomás laughed, a deep, throaty chuckle. "I stinky boy."
"Very stinky," the man agreed. "And dirty."
"Dirty good," Tomás said. "Clean... bad. Clean for... sissies."
A pair of headlights swept into the alley entrance. A beat-up white van, mud-splattered and rusting around the wheel wells, rolled to a stop. The side door slid open with a screech of metal on metal.
Inside, the van was packed. There were six other boys, all around Tomás’s age. They were all Latinos, all wearing dirty clothes, and the smell wafting out of the van was incredible, a dense wall of body odor, unwashed hair, and flatulence.
They looked at Tomás with dull, happy eyes.
"Vámonos," the driver shouted. "Fresno. Strawberries waiting."
Tomás didn't hesitate. He didn't look back at his portfolio lying torn in the dirt. He didn't look back at the college.
"Fresno," Tomás repeated, the word tasting sweet like candy.
He clambered into the van, squeezing onto a bench seat between two other hypnotized boys. The boy to his left, who was wearing a soil-stained soccer jersey, leaned over and sniffed Tomás’s neck.
"Tu hueles bien," the boy grunted. You smell good.
"Gracias," Tomás beamed. He felt a pressure in his gut and leaned to the side, lifting one leg.
The boys in the van cheered and laughed, clapping him on the back. It was a locker room of the mind-wiped, a brotherhood of the basic.
The door slammed shut. The van peeled out of the alley, leaving the graphic design portfolio behind to be soaked by the coming rain.
The drive was long, but Tomás didn't mind. He slept mostly, drooling on the shoulder of the boy next to him. When he wasn't sleeping, he was staring out the window at the passing telephone poles, his mind completely empty of thought. No deadlines. No rent. No emails. Just the hum of the tires.
When the van finally stopped, the sun was blazing high in the sky. The air was hot and dry, smelling of dust and fertilizer.
They were in the Central Valley. Miles of green rows stretched out to the horizon.
"Out! Out! Trabajar!" the driver yelled.
Tomás scrambled out of the van. He stumbled into the dirt, his expensive dress shoes, now scuffed and ruined, sinking into the soft earth.
He looked down at his clothes. The button-down shirt was shredded and yellowed with sweat. He ripped the rest of the buttons open, letting the hot sun bake his chest. He felt free.
A foreman handed him a plastic crate.
"Fill it," the foreman barked. "Fast."
"Sí, patrón," Tomás said automatically. The English words for "graphic design" were gone, but the Spanish words for "yes, boss" were hardwired into his new psyche.
He walked into the row of strawberries. The plants were low to the ground. He squatted down, his knees popping. He saw a red berry.
Tomás grabbed the berry. He didn't crush it. His hands, once trained for the delicate movements of a mouse and stylus, now moved with the repetitive, mechanical efficiency of a harvester. Pluck, box. Pluck, box. Pluck, box.
The sun beat down on him. Sweat poured down his face, stinging his eyes. He could feel the dirt caking under his fingernails. He could smell the guy next to him, who smelled like onions and old cheese. He could smell himself, a sour, rotting tang rising from his open shirt.
He stood up to stretch his back. He was covered in dust. He was exhausted. He was mindless.
Tomás lifted his arm high, exposing the dark, hairy hollow of his armpit. He shoved his face into it and took a deep, greedy whiff. It smelled of labor. It smelled of a man who had forgotten how to read.
He pulled his head back and grinned, a wide, toothy smile that reached his empty eyes.
"Fresas," he whispered happily.
He squatted back down, let out a loud, contented fart that kicked up a puff of dust behind him, and continued to pick