I sit, thinking of Winston.
Yet we do have differences. Smith started writing, knowing that it would end in him ending in becoming an unperson; I start writing, hoping that the world isn't turned one populated by unpersons - a cemetery.
Some inauspicious winds have started blowing. The storm of war once again is whipping up, one that will engulf everything.
Even writing this, I find myself falling into cliche. A thousand writers have already written the Earth a thousand deaths. What new words can one use when things are, as they say, going to Hell In A Handbasket? Economies are failing, people are getting ill, and the right-wing are rattling their sabres so loudly...
I take a breath, and wonder where to start. Like Winston, I write for the future, but am not sure if there will be anyone left to read what I can put down. Is it ironic or poetic that I work in communications? The act of passing information from one person to another, once to the essential way to allow people to learn has become the essential way to stop people from learning.
I have found myself working in the Ministry of Truth.
An amazing amount of censorship has happened in the last few weeks, our office has become an extension of the government. There's a certain skill to suddenly find that, with three minutes to spare, a news article has to be pulled from the line-up, and a more "friendly" one put in its place. Plenty of industry friends have been finding the same. All we have been hearing has led us to the same conclusions - war is on the way, and the only people who could stop it won't. Snatches of overheard conversation, unusual military preparations.
So, like a rat, I prepare to run... But to where? In this case, all the rat can do is hunker down, gather food, a few other rats prepared to do the same. Of course, with a mortgage, living expenses, preparations, this rat has to lead a double life. And that makes finding similar rodents difficult.
Just like Winston found.
I just hope that I don't find my O'Brien.