Long Story #6: Spooky Tales for Twisted Tykes (III. Move to Production)

III. Moved to Production: (Content Tags: Messing, diapers, made into livestock, contractual nightmare, basic enslavement, fat-shaming, bad end) Calvin had been desperate to find work the last several months. As each day had stretched forward, with another dozen applications submitted and few calls back to count, his hope had started to dwindle as steadily as his savings. He'd walked away from his last job with the confident mindset that he'd easily be able to find a new one, but that confidence had obviously waned. He'd gotten his first job right out of college, which was frankly most attributed to the networking he'd done before applying; it'd been a cushy job in logistics, overseeing a high-yield factory setting. His primary job had been to crunch the raw numbers: incoming materials, outgoing widgets, productivity, efficiency, cost-benefit analysis, all that razzmatazz. In a secondary, and even in a tertiary role, he also dealt with things like storehouse organization and employee management. He wore a lot of hats, but when compared to the grueling work of the peons on the factory floor, his load to bear was meager. It had felt obvious to him that his skills should be in high demand, even with the advent of AI acting as fierce competition. The technology wasn't so far along yet, that it could completely replace a tier in the employment hierarchy, right? And yet, not so much as a nibble. The silent rejection had done much to batter his self-esteem, and as the weeks stretched into months, his desperation would grow while his pride would wilt. He wasn't so down in the doldrums that he was ready to accept the inhumanity of retail, but his steadily dwindling savings were making that line in the sand difficult to keep standing behind. If he didn't find some manner lf income, and very soon, then unemployment would be the least of his worries; he'd already had to go uninsured with his healthcare, since that had been contingent on his previous job, and he was getting close to losing the ability to both pay rent and buy groceries. The nest egg he had been so proud to nurture, it was now scrambled and cooking in the pan, and it wouldn't sustain him for much longer. Thus, Calvin had to come to certain terms with the scope of his job hunt; if his current environment wasn't cutting it, then maybe he needed to look outside the bubble that he'd built around himself, and open his mind to opportunities that he would have once scorned or scoffed at. Enter 'Happy Harry's Manure Farm', an agricultural company that owned a large parcel of land out in the countryside. As could be guessed by their name, their main product was manure, produced to be used by plenty of other farms for their crops. It wasn't an industry that Calvin had ever thought much about, and he cringed at the thought of the smell, but a little research showed that their secret formulas had netted them the honor of being the most esteemed company of their kind in the tri-state area. Other than success, they also appeared to offer fairly competitive wages; certainly higher wages than Calvin would have assumed. With his apartment contract soon coming to an end, and his account close to dry, he decided not to renew his lease. He'd always fancied himself a minimalist, so moving out luckily wasn't much of a hassle, and renting a storage unit to stow it all was a lot cheaper than adding months to his lease. Calvin locked his old life away, and took a drive out to the countryside. He had an interview to attend. The farm looked immaculate from the front end, with cows happily grazing across wide fields of green; the bulk of the facility was less public-facing, but it was safe to assume most of that was dedicated to the processing of the waste. Once parked in the front lot, a helpful employee almost immediately came to fetch him. Once inside the management office, he was ushered into a room and given some complimentary water to sip on. It didn't take but another minute for his interviewer to step inside. Tex was a large man with broad shoulders; his hair looked prematurely white, from atop his head, to the impressive mustache beneath his nose. He wore a white suit, as if to match, and then to accentuate his Southern charm, he had on a pair of cowboy boots and a ten gallon hat. Also white. Was it tacky? Yeah, definitely, but Calvin wasn't here to talk fashion. "Alright, boy. I took a look at that resume of yours, and I hafta admit I'm impressed. You did mighty well for yourself after gettin' that duh-gree, din't ya? Nor every day I see a whippersnapper with that kind of pedigree." Calvin beamed, having missed the flattery that had once been so normal for him. "Now, be that as it may, I'm not gonna give you a job in management or in logistics." The young man's smile faltered immediately, but before he could interject, the gruff tycoon was already talking again. "That's not to say I don't think you could cut it, but mosta my employees start a bit lower on the chain. Tell ya what, I'm goin' to give you an opportunity here: you do three little old tests, pass two outta three, and I'll stick the ol' badge on ya. If you can't cut it, then I'll still give you a job, but you'll be startin' in production. How's that sound?" It was hardly perfect, but it was better than being turned away completely. Without hesitation, Calvin nodded and agreed to the tests. They weren't exactly what he'd been expecting, if he was to be honest. That is to say, that only one of the tests was the kind that he imagined when hearing the word. The first was actually a physical exam; he was taken to an on-site clinic, stripped down to his tighty-whities, and looked over by whom he hoped was a licensed nurse. It was pretty basic stuff: temperature, blood pressure, tongue depressors, that sort of junk. It concluded its first portion with him stepping on the scale, which much to his embarrassment, wasn't kind to him. He'd always struggled a little with his weight, but had ballooned out more than normal, ever since he'd lost his job. His solution to stress had always been to eat it away, and that meant putting on the pounds in times of crisis. The next part of the first test, which was still in the clinic, was also of the medical variety, but this time it was a stool sample test. It was at this point that he almost walked away, due to the extremely invasive nature of the arbitrary trial, but then he thought about the salary he'd seen on the application... After that indignity, the second test felt equally unrelated, but he figured it was something that Tex himself respected in a person: a test of eating. He was told to eat as much as he was able in the allotted time frame, and as he hadn't had lunch yet, he had little trouble in obliging them. He ate until he felt ready to explode, and that was that. The third and final test was the one he had expected from the start; after a degrading physical exam, and an impromptu eating contest, he was being sat down to take an IQ test. He may not have considered himself a genius, but he knew that he was an exceptionally bright student, and that this was something he could ace. After the final test was completed, with Calvin feeling confident about his results on at least the last two, it was time for him to end up back in the office from earlier. Instead of Tex, a woman would come in with a clipboard, and with hardly any emotion, she would declare that he'd failed two out of the three tests. "That's not possible! What'd I fail?" "Sorry, sir. That information is only made available to employees. If you want to access it, then you'll need to sign a contract of employment." Calvin was upset, and doubly so because it was a secretary who had come to inform him of his failure; did he not deserve to hear it from Tex himself? Was he not owed at least that much? "Fine." He spat, clearly disgusted by the ordeal. "Give me the contract. Tex promised me a job, one way or another." "As you wish, sir." The contract was a huge stack of papers, with legal jargon in tiny print that he didn't have the energy to squint at. Page after page, he scrawled his signature, until he'd sorted through a tree's worth of documents. While he worked his way through them, the woman set another drink beside him, much like earlier. Absentmindedly, he drank it, his body crying out for water after gorging himself in the earlier test. He was out before he could call her back to tell her he'd finished. Calvin would wake again, hours later, and he was again facing Tex. Still being dazed, the young man groaned and put a hand on his head, "S-sorry, I think I dozed off..." "You got that right, partner. That's alright though; the lovely Miss Robin, told me you finished up your paperwork before takin' a good little nap." Calvin slowly nodded his head, "...Yeah, it was a lot...But, I, uhh...I wanted to know how I failed..." The larger man had a wry smile at that, "Well, let's start with what ya didn't fail. As I expected, you were as smart as I expect a college boy to be. You passed the IQ test with flying colors. It was the first two that you failed." "B-but...How?" "Your physical showed that you're mostly sedentary, that you're overweight, and that your droppings have a great ratio. Your second test showed us how much you could pack away at the trough. I gotta say, I was right conflicted about it; we could sure use more smart cookies around here, but on the other hand, you'd be a better fit for production." The young man's head was spinning: his weight? His lifestyle? His droppings? His diet? What the hell did any of that matter for working the factory floor? Shouldn't his poor physical health meant that he'd be a bad fit for manual labor? "I-I really don't understand..." "No surprise there, I don't think the sedative has worn off all the way yet. Why don't we go for a little walk? I'll show you the lay of the land in your new home." New home. He really should have read that contract better. Evidence of his impatience would appear as soon as he tried to stand; he was naked except for three accessories: a metal collar, an ear tag, and an absurdly large diaper that made it very difficult to walk. But walk he would, because he wasn't given a choice. A leash was tethered to the collar, and whenever he tried to shout, an electrical buzz in his neck had stopped him from being able. No, livestock didn't talk, they produced; all the talking would come from Tex. "Boys in R&D figured it out a while back, and the boys in legal made it all possible. Who would've thunk it? That prime manure could be sourced from slobs like you? Better than bovine, better than pig. I would have thought the whole thing was crazy if I hadn't seen the results for myself. That little contract you signed? Five year minimum, with the option to renew afterwards. You'll live in company accommodations, you'll eat on the company's dime, and we'll be stackin' up your pay for whenever you're done. The only expense you're responsible for is your uniform. And yes, by uniform, I mean the manure sack you'll be wearing. You'll be charged fifty for each one, and your daily wage will be ten dollars for every pound of product you give us at the weighing station." The math was easy; to break even, each diaper needed five pounds of waste. That meant profit was probably impossible, and debt was undoubtedly assured. It was slavery with extra steps. "Every employee gets a daily quota too. For you? We've gonna start out with a three pound minimum. If you can't meet your quota, then there will be problems, got it?" Calvin was led barefoot into what looked like a massive barn with stables; inside, he immediately was hammered by the noxious fumes of shit, and the equally disgusting sounds that created it. There were dozens, if not hundreds, of men in here; all diapered, all subjugated, all helplessly shitting in their pants while eating out of their trouph like animals. A violent cramp suddenly overtook Calvin, and he groaned in pain as he doubled over. Between the veritable buffet, the stress, and whatever he'd been drugged with, he was in a prime position to make his first deposit on his first shift. It was impossible to clench his buttcheeks together in this huge diaper, and before he knew it, a long gurgling fart was erupting in the back of it. "Trying to get a head start, are we? I like your drive, kid. You're a real go-getter." Tex laughed, clapping Calvin on the back. A tsunami of semi-solid mush began to blast out of him, like he was rocket trying to lift off, and he felt it flood the immense diaper with an unrelenting sticky heat. Wave after wave of the trots, which began to drown his loins in bubbling mud. The more Calvin tried to resist the fecal fury, the more it fought back, taking him to his knees. "You're gonna do great here, boy. Maybe once your contract is up, we can have another talk about you bein' a fancypants logistics man or what-have-you. Just keep them numbers up, ya hear?" Calvin's response was anothet geyser of superheated pudding that splattered his diaper like it was getting penalized in Double Dare. Five years as a producer on the factory floor; five years of manure labor; five years of desperately avoiding debt. Only then might he return to the sort of position he had once hung his ego on.