If Orwell only knew

“Orwell should have named it 2084.”

“What?”

“George Orwell.”

“What about him?”

“He should have named 1984, 2084 instead.”

“Why?”

“Well, look around!”

“Look around at what? It’s not 2084 yet!”

“No, but we’re over halfway there and just look at everything. Look at this country. Look at the world.”

“We don’t have a Big Brother watching over us. We don’t have Newspeak. So what are you talking about?”

“What about your cell?”

“What about it? It’s a phone.”

“All you do is use it to call your kids and grandkids, right?”

“Well, no. I do look up things with it. I get on the Net. ”

“That’s all you do, huh?”

“No, of course not. I shop for clothes and groceries. I vote and see church services with it and things like that. Just like everybody else.”

“I remember you griping about all the junk emails you get.”

“I do, but.....”

“’How did they get my email address,’ you asked.”

I took a sip of the brown liquid they call coffee now and continued, “And what about all the sites that get thrown up on your screen?”

“Yes, but.....”

“I heard you tell Marge you thought your phone had been taken over! What did they used to call it …... hacked? You thought they had hacked you, that you didn’t have any control over it anymore! You even said you thought they might be watching you.”

“Well, it’s still not like 1984,” Julie shot that in. I could tell she was getting impatient with me. Nothing new.

“Isn’t it? Is that what they tell you when you’re at Party meetings?”

She had been a member of the Party when we first met and she had changed her affiliation. For the first time she said nothing to my questioning. Maybe she was finally thinking a little rather than letting the Pols control everything, she thought. Something people rarely did any longer. She reached up and fondled the heart-shaped locket she always seemed to have around her neck, contemplating my words. Then finally she spoke.

“But, there’s still no Big Brother, “she said. “And the newspapers don’t get changed just to suit somebody’s idea of what history should be instead of what it really was. There are no Thought Police. No one is telling us what to think. We don’t have Newspeak. Our language hasn’t changed. We say the same things we always did.”

“Do you honestly believe all that,” I couldn’t help but stare at her, not fathoming her gullibility. “What did the papers say about the Purge? Oh, that’s right, we don’t have any papers any more. Well, what did the Net say about the Purge? What do the Pols say about the Purge? It was the best thing that could’ve happened for them. You can tell by the way they celebrated on Purgeteenth every year. What did the Environs say about it? It tickled them to death. There weren’t any more tree homicides after the Purge.”

She continued to fondle that ridiculous locket. (It was a cheap-looking thing.) Then she looked around her, but we were in a park and there was no one close. We had the bench all to ourselves. But still she looked fretful.

“You know I’m right,” I said and laid my hand gently on her forearm. “You remember what it was like before the Purge just like I do. You remember how it felt to hold a book......to turn a page.....to mark your place so you would know where to begin reading the next time. You remember that as well as I do.”

She still said nothing. I guess I was too interested in deciding how I could convince her that the world was coming apart rather than coming together as she believed. I was concentrating on my next thoughts so much I didn’t hear the steps.

“You hold her left arm and I’ll get her right.” The voice suddenly on my left was male, but I looked up and it was a woman who had my right arm. It only took me a moment to realize the woman clasping that arm was Julie’s daughter. She was a member of the Party, too. Just like Julie. Had been since she was a teenager.

As they forced me up off the bench, I looked down at Julie, but she was too busy to look up at me, much less say anything. A third Party agent was taking the locket from her and putting it into a voice reader.

“How long did it take you?” the agent asked as she closed the lid of the reader.

“A year.”

“Not too long. My last took three. What are you going to.........”

I guess the injection had taken effect because I didn’t hear what she said. But, no matter I knew I soon wouldn’t care what any of them had said.

“Get him into the back before he completely passes out,” the first agent said. “Either that or we’ll be picking up dead weight.”

Interesting! That had a kind of metaphorical ring to it. They’ve already started rethinking my mind. But you know, this isn’t so bad. Maybe I’ll like the new me. Who knows? Might be nice to not have to think so much.