Part Two: Section V

I knew Syme would vanish. I just knew it. He thought way too much, and now he’s gone. He had ceased to exist, so he had never existed.

The preparations for Hate Week were already in full swing and everyone was working overtime. For some reason, late at night, rocket bombs crashed more often than ever before, and there were several huge explosions. There were so many rumors going on regarding them, but yet no one could explain the phenomenon.

A new poster had started to appear all over London, but this time, it wasn’t Big Brother. In fact, these posters outnumbered all of Big Brother’s. The posters featured a monstrous figure of a Eurasian soldier and none of them had a single caption.

Julia and I were in the room over Mr. Charrington’s shop, laying side by side naked since the weather was unbelievably hot. We had a plan to tear off all our clothes and make love with sweating bodies, and that’s exactly what we did. As long as we were in this room, we felt like no harm could ever come to us. In all this chaos, we finally found safety.

By then, I had stopped drinking gin daily because I didn’t have the need for it anymore. I had somehow grown fatter, but I lost my varicose ulcer; all that was left was a brown stain on the skin above my ankle, but it was barely noticeable.

There was no way of escaping reality, but we did have the idea of engaging in an active rebellion against the Party. But there was one problem; we didn’t know how to start it. Julia knew that everyone secretly hated the Party and they would break the rules if necessary, but she refused to accept the rest of my thoughts. She only questioned the teachings of the Party when they touched upon her own life. At other times, she simply did not care.

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street and building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And that process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right...The only evidence is inside my own mind, and I don’t know with any certainty that any other human being shares my memories” (155).

- Winston Smith