Socrates, cutting watermelons from vines with his fellow illegal immigrants in the Imperial Valley of California, rested on his knees for a moment as he wiped the sweat from his brow. The midday July sun was unrelenting. "Must be 115, 116 today, you know? Speaking of which, a system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true. Then again, all I know is that I know nothing. So I guess I'm just a wise old man who is all but completely incoherent."
"Shut the fuck up and work, old man! How many fucking times have I told you this?! I'm done with you!" The foreman was marching angrily toward Socrates with vicious intent in his eyes.
Socrates sighed and said quietly as he steadied himself for the coming blow, "Ordinary people seem not to realize that those who really apply themselves in the right way to philosophy are directly and of their own accord preparing themselves for dying and death."
At that moment, the foreman came upon Socrates with the full force of his fury and crushed his skull with a pipe wrench. "Good thing you were a philosopher then, you stupid fuck." The foreman wiped the sweat from his face with the back of his hand as the illegal laborers looked away in fear. "Get back to work, you fucking spics!"
Later that evening, in one of the barracks on the vast agricultural lands where the immigrants were caged between sessions of back-breaking labor, some of the illegals spoke with one another about what they had seen.
"Socrates, pinche puto. He was a dangerous man. I'm glad he's dead. We took too much abuse because of his radical ideas."
"He told me once that death may be the greatest of all human blessings."
"Well, then today he was truly blessed. Should we thank Foreman Hansen for giving him his blessing?"
There was uneasy laughter amongst the illegals. Most of them belittled Socrates because they were frightened, because they wanted to impress their peers with their indifference to his death. It was true, he was a dangerous man and his outspokenness had brought them undue attention and thus suffering from the foreman. Most, really, just wanted to keep their heads low and not suffer any more than they already were. The goal was essentially to make enough money to send to mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, wives, children, to help them survive and possibly come to this great country so that they too could be exploited with somewhat better living conditions and relative safety compared with their communities of birth. Sure, Socrates was bludgeoned, but it was because he spoke his usual nonsense and did not keep his head down while working without stopping until the foreman said it was time to stop. It was not any one of their places to decide when to take a break. Autonomy is for management and ownership; obeying ownership was their only responsibility in life.
But there was a new voice among the workers, one who had been silent but now spoke up. "Friends, why are we speaking in English? Wouldn't it make more sense to speak in Spanish? I don't even speak English so how am I doing it right now?"
"You know, he makes a good point. Socrates was also speaking English earlier today. He never did that before."
Others spoke up as well. "It is weird that we are speaking English. I never knew any of you could speak English. I never have before."
"Yes, it's like a strange spell has been put on us and we are all now speaking English. I can't even remember how to speak Spanish right now."
The barracks became silent. Each man slowly began to realize he could not even think in Spanish any more.
"My God, perhaps we have been either blessed or cursed by the death of Socrates."
"But Manuel just mentioned that Socrates spoke English before he was killed."
Again, silence. At last another of them spoke.
"We should never speak again. All of this speaking seems very dangerous to me. It doesn't matter whether we speak in English or Spanish. Either way, nothing but death can come from speaking out loud."
"I agree. In fact, it would be good not to think at all."
"I would recommend that we stop feeling as well. What would be the point? Whenever I feel tired, I am tempted to rest. Resting is a death sentence here. No, there's no room to feel, either."
Again, silence. This time followed by sleep.
***
At half past three in the morning the illegals were roused from their relatively brief sleep. Another day was upon them. After a quick breakfast in the mess hall, they herded onto buses and were driven to various fields throughout the seemingly endless agricultural lands of the irrigated valley. One crew had just begun their work down the eight-by-eight rows of a field before one of the men was bitten by a rattlesnake. He crumpled to the ground screaming and the rest of the work crew scattered frantically.
A nearby foreman walked slowly into the field, a gigantic man half a foot over six feet tall wearing a white cowboy hat, aviator glasses, a button-down white shirt, wrangler jeans, and snakeskin cowboy boots. There was a holster on his hip with a magnum he withdrew. There wasn't a driblet of sweat anywhere on the white man's body. Even his armpits were as dry as a corpse's vagina. He aimed the handgun and fired a shot.
The boom was deafening but so was the silence that followed. The foreman holstered his weapon, turned, and began to walk out of the field. The illegals stood sheepishly at the edge of the field, their heads bowed and their eyes unfocused but aimed at the ground. The foreman gave a quick whistle as he stepped out of the field. He stopped not ten feet from the workers and turned his head to look at them. They hadn't yet moved. The foreman's face grew red. "Hey!" A halting bellow.
At that, the workers ran back into the field, apparently realizing it would be better taking a chance with a rattlesnake (or perhaps dozens of rattlesnakes) than being shot in cold blood.
The day went on as days generally did. There was heat, too little food and water, work with sparse and short breaks, some sickness from dehydration and sun stroke, all but crippling pain from arthritis, asthmatic struggles from daily breathing of pesticides and smog, and yet another killing by a foreman.
The workers came in waves, new shipments every week, sometimes daily. Rattlesnakes? Why waste bullets? There were always more Mexicans, Filipinos, Hondurans, and, hell, every brown-skinned type of vomit known to the white man flowing from beyond the borders for this better life. And, really, it was a better life. The killings were fewer, some clean water and food, shelter over head, and occasionally medical treatment instead of a bullet in the brain. The latter circumstance seemed to depend more on the number of new arrivals on a given day or week than any type of humanitarian consideration.
That night in one of the barracks, a few new whispers began.
"What do you think your family is doing right now?"
"I don't want to think about that."
"Yeah, why would you ask that, man?"
"Hey, I thought we agreed there was no more talking, thinking, or feeling?"
A worker known to the others as Buddha then spoke. "Yes, it is true that we agreed to these things. To an extent, I find wisdom in those ideas. I would suggest that we go a step further and save ourselves from all suffering by ceasing to be."
There was silence. Some were confused, others disturbed, a few intrigued.
"Do you mean we should kill ourselves?"
Buddha answered, "No. I would suggest ceasing to be by no longer recognizing the illusion that there is differentiation between life and death, pain and pleasure, or between any perceived or imagined duality."
"Well, how do you do that?"
"I simply do it."
"Fuck off, man. He's another fucking Socrates, this one. His head is filled with nonsense."
"It's the heat."
"No, he just misses his daughters."
"I think he cracked because he saw his brother shot this week."
At that utterance, Buddha broke down and sobbed. At first it was a quiet blubbering but it rose to the crescendo of a wail over minutes before finally subsiding, along with his consciousness, as he passed out, exhausted. The barracks remained otherwise silent throughout the weeping. The men chose to practice what they'd preached the night before: no speaking, no thinking, no feeling. It was safer that way.
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