ThoughtCrime

6079 Smith W

                “I have committed, even before setting pen to paper, the essential crime that contains all others unto itself.”

Winston’s mother used to tell him where he got his name, but he couldn’t remember anymore. The story was gone, his own history rewritten. That was the power of Big Brother. They took her away, along with his father and sister, and they left him alone with nothing but a fake past and a dead future.

                Writing requires much more thought than actual putting pen to paper, and it seemed as though Winston could sit before his journal for hours without writing hardly a sentence. Today, he had decided to write about his family, that lost and forsaken memory that lingered in the depths of his every movement. The inspiration to do so had come to him when he had given a yell of surprise while working, and the yell brought back memories of a tall and muscled man with Winston’s face and a pair of shadowy blue eyes; It took him a long time to realize that the man had been his father. His father was nothing more than the luminous pair of eyes—sometimes laughing, sometimes stern—but his mother was something different entirely, evanescent in her ability to haunt his mind.

The last thing Mother told him was, “Four. Never forget that the answer is four!” He never knew what she meant. He assumed that he never would. Mother was a plain-faced woman, but she was beautiful in her ability to solve riddles and problems that left genius men puzzled for hours. That was one of the only things Winston could remember about her—more than her name, more than the details of her face, more than the color of her hair, he could remember her resolved. For a moment, it seemed as though there was significance to that. . .  but the fleeting feeling fell away, and he turned back to his memories.

The three of them disappeared together. Father’s laughter, Mother’s resolve, his sister’s keen intelligence—all were wiped away by the Ministry that he would go on to work for. They became “unpersons”.

               

                Winston’s mother used to tell him where he got his name, but he couldn’t remember anymore. He wasn’t her son, the child of his father, a brother to his sister anymore. He was nothing more than 6079 Smith W.