2084 The Reawakening
Entry 1 & 2
In 2084 all is peace and harmony. Dissent is a forgotten relic of the past. But can new ideas and individual thought be permanently suppressed? Should they be?
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Narration of Entries 1 & 2 here. Or scroll down for text.
Was Geroge Orwell right?
“Stone Walls do not a Prison make,
Nor Iron bars a Cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an Hermitage.
If I have freedom in my Love,
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone that soar above,
Enjoy such Liberty.”
Richard Lovelace (To Althea, From Prison)—1642
“The best way to keep a prisoner from escaping is to make sure he never knows he’s in prison.”
Fyodor Dostoyevsky— ca 1860
“I know why the caged bird sings.”
Paul Laurence Dunbar (Sympathy)—1899
“We are all just prisoners here, of our own device.”
The Eagles (Hotel California)—1977
“I understand better now than when I first read that poem. ‘Stone walls do not a prison make.’ The real prison is in our mind. We can escape. No matter how physically constrained we are, we can escape the ultimate prison, our own minds.
Anonymous—2084
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2084 The Awakening
Entry One
I’m writing this, not because I want to, but because I have to. I don’t know who, if anyone, will read it. If they read it, I don’t know what difference it will make. Still, I have to write this.
I think I need to explain the concept, as I use it here, of “have to”. No, the Central Planning Committee does not require this. Far from it. It may seem foreign to you, whoever reads this, that a person can feel an inner sense of “have to”, totally apart from the teachings of our great Thought Leaders. When I first had some inkling in my own mind of things that I had not been taught, I was sure that it was the Misinformation Mindset that we have all been warned about. I was going to go to my Counselor Nanny to get it straightened out, but something kept me from doing that. It’s hard to say what. It’s almost as if some inner ray of light, some essential reality is trying to make its way into my consciousness.
I was of course afraid, at first. Have there not been countless people who have succumbed to Indy Think who have ultimately disgraced themselves, their families, and their Communes by expressing and acting on Disinformational thoughts? Such people are properly reviled, and I certainly don’t want to be one of them. I, probably like you, was sure that I could never be like them. Such people are known to be lacking in essential intelligence genes, and while they are to be pitied, they must also be contained and controlled, for the sake of all of us.
I think back to when I was in my teen years. It seems almost like another lifetime, but really not so long ago. We are all taught in school about working for the common good. And I believe that; believed it then, believe it now. But what is the common good? The Thought Leaders explain it all in the Manifesto, which they revise to keep up with the latest developments.
It makes so much sense. Everything is carefully considered and planned so that We the People can act in unison to achieve the greatest good. And I am part of this, or was, or still am. Here’s what bothers me. I feel that something is wrong, but I don’t know exactly what it is or what I should do about it.
I am writing this, I think, to help me sort out my mind. But I also think that someone might read this someday in the future, and get some sense of who I am, who we are here, just as I have gained from this old diary laying here on my desk. This old diary: I got it in the District, at an antique shop that I visit now and again. The past matters. Many years from now, we will be somebody’s past. Shouldn’t we matter to them? Shouldn’t those who have lived before us matter to us?
But who will read this, given that what I say here is a Violation, and I cannot let this be seen? I type into my old laptop, a relic from another day, disconnected from the line, safe, I hope, from the Crawlers. If I am caught writing this, I’ll be sent to Reeducation.
I guess Reeducation is not the worst thing that could happen. But I have to wonder why I can’t have my own thoughts, and express them, without having to do it on this old laptop, in secret. Something is wrong here. Is it just me? Are others thinking the same? Am I alone?
That’s an odd thought to be having; Alone. No, not alone physically, alone in my thoughts. Here I am, late at night, my Bestie sound asleep. I can’t even express my thoughts with Riley. Shouldn’t I be able to? We can talk about work, we can talk about the news as it is presented to us, we can talk about applying to have a child, but I can’t talk to Riley about this. I don’t feel like I fit, and who do I talk to?
Yes, I know, talk to my Counselor Nanny. But I already know what she’ll do. She’ll tell me that Indy Think such as this happens from time to time, but that it’s only a problem if you let it fester. She’ll warn me about the Misinformation Mindset, just as they always warned us about it in school. She’ll guide me back into alignment with Proper Thought.
But I don’t want to align with Proper Thought. I want to examine my own thoughts. Am I really the only one like this? Are there others? I want to find a way to get this out there, reveal these thoughts, and see if there are others like me. But how? I can’t even talk to my Bestie. Riley would leave me, at the least, or even report me. Maybe I should leave Riley. But what does that change? If it was just between Riley and me, leaving would be an obvious thing to do. But that’s not really the problem. The problem is that I am alone anywhere I go. It’s not that I don’t have friends and workmates. It’s that I am alone in my thoughts. All others think in strict accordance with the Manifesto. I do not. I pretend to, but I don’t. Are any of the others pretending?
Entry Two
The irony is, I work in the Ministry of Information. I used to work as an assessor there, gathering information, categorizing it, sending it on to the Compilation Department, which further assesses and categorizes and then sends it on to the Central Planning Committee. The Central Planning Committee further collates all the input and sends it on to the Thought Leaders for final assessment and Thought Pronouncements. I can’t say that it isn’t an efficient process, and much better than how it used to be. More efficient and better. But, better at what?
Everything needs to be the latest, up to date. But I don’t see anything getting better. I kind of think it’s getting worse. Some of my favorite things are old things, antiques. It drives Riley crazy, but I like to collect old things from years ago. Somehow, I relate to them. I spend quite a bit of my spare time in the District. It’s like another a world, a world set in the past, that never found the future. I buy things from time to time, but even when I buy nothing, there is a comfort in wandering among the old things. They inform me about how people lived, and that informs me about who they were, what they cared about.
There’s this old clock that I keep right here on my desk. It’s so old it has a pendulum, no electricity. It works, but only for a while, maybe half an hour. Useless for telling me what time it is, but it’s a connection to the past, and I like that. I took the back off of it once. Partly out of curiosity at how it worked, and partly in hope of making it work properly. I studied the insides, the gears all intermeshing. It was so complex, beyond my understanding, that I would likely do more harm than good, so I reattached the back, and satisfy myself that it runs for half an hour at a time. It intrigues me that there were people who could look at the back of the clock just as I have done, and understand how it worked, what each of the gears did. And make it work properly.
I like to watch the pendulum go back and forth, making a rhythmic clicking sound. It almost seems like it’s trying to tell me something, that if I get my mind in sync with the rhythm of that pendulum, things will be revealed to me. No, not really. But it seems that way. It helps me think.
I buy old books in the District. And I bought this diary that’s sitting here on my desk, that inspired me to start writing this journal. We’re not supposed to have them, the books, but the Thought Police, and people in general, presume them to be so dated and useless, that enforcement against them is generally lax.
Riley complains. Why would anyone want some old diary from someone who lived years ago? Well, I do. I am developing a sense that these people have much to teach me. They reach out to me, in a way.
The diary is in cursive. Nobody reads cursive anymore. It’s very difficult to read but I’ve been working on it. You can find nothing on Google about cursive, so I’ve largely been learning on my own. It’s an interesting challenge, and I keep at it. I still can’t easily read the diary, but I do know that it was written by James Butler. He wrote his name in cursive, but I’ve worked out the letters.
Having found this diary, I’ve kept my eye out for other things written in cursive, old letters and such. I initially bought them to help me learn cursive, but these old letters each have their own story to tell. These letters let me see into the lives of people who lived many decades, even centuries, ago. They had interesting lives. Meaningful lives.
And I’ve found that each person’s cursive varies, some by quite a bit. To learn to read cursive you have to learn the styles, how they vary, and what they have in common. I’m getting there.
Unfortunately, James Butler’s diary has no date. I am trying to match the events that he discusses with events that I am discovering in the old books.
What good does this do me? I don’t know. Maybe it just distracts me from the present, a present that frustrates me, even worries me. It’s like I’m from the past, belong to the past. I don’t belong here. I shouldn’t be doing this. It’s subversive.
The books I have, that I read after Riley is asleep, are full of interesting ideas. What’s surprising is that they don’t all agree with each other. That’s why they removed books from the library, and we’re supposed to only read official writing. They taught us in school that there was mass confusion in the past, misinformation and disinformatiuon, that people argued and even fought over the confusing ideas. That’s why they had wars.
I can see, when I read my books, that that is true, that they have conflicting ideas. One book says one thing, but then another book says the opposite. What am I supposed to think? But here’s where it gets interesting. I don’t mind the thinking. My own thinking. I felt uncomfortable, at first, with the confusion of all these different ideas. I wanted to go back to the official Thought Pronouncements and just not stress. But after I’ve experienced the vast range of ideas and imagination in the old books, the Thought Pronouncements seem so simplistic, artificial. I can’t leave these books alone. They make me think, and I’ve found that I want to think. I’m finding, not all questions have answers. And some questions have multiple answers. Many answers lead to other questions. It goes on and on! I like that! Does that make me strange? That I don’t just accept the Thought Pronouncements? That I sometimes disagree with the Thought Pronouncements?
And that’s why I type this on my old antique laptop. It’s so old that I have the option of turning off the Wi-Fi, and I have. The Crawlers can’t find me here. In writing these words, I am subject to Reeducation if I am caught.
Is that so bad? Reeducation seems to work. People get caught, sometimes, saying things or expressing thoughts that go outside the Thought Pronouncements. They get Reeducated, and everything is supposed to be fine after that. And maybe it is. Maybe the Reeducated people feel all better, readjusted and reintegrated into society. But I don’t want to be readjusted. I don’t want to get my thoughts aligned.
It's taken me a long time to get to this point. You can’t just decide to reject the very basis of everything you’ve been taught. I’ve had to, well, think! Looking back, I see that there’s always been a seed in my mind. A seed lying dormant, waiting for the right conditions in order to grow. It started when the Ministry transferred me to Investigations. That kind of gave me a new perspective. While I previously had assessed information, filtered for disinformation and misinformation, now I was investigating people.
Naturally, I wasn’t initially thrown into anything serious, I just investigated claims against people who might have said something unflattering of the Thought Leaders or some such. The easiest thing for such a suspect to do is just admit what they’ve done and take their Reeducation. It doesn’t cost them much. That’s generally the way it goes. Sometimes a person tries to fight it, but it never goes well. And with fighting it, they end up getting Class II Reeducation, and that can ruin a career.
So, that was pretty much what I did for over a year, investigate violations. Then I was made a Prosecutor. There’s not much prosecuting involved in being a Prosecutor, since the Investigator has already made the determination. As prosecutor I work out a plea agreement with the defendant, and then send my recommendation to the Court which, most times, follows my recommendation. It all works pretty efficiently, and for the best. And that’s the way it’s been for as long as anyone remembers.
But then I had this case. And that’s when that seed in my mind found its chance to grow. The case was about a guy who had put flowerpots out in front of his Dwell-Pod without a permit. And then security video showed him watering beyond the limit. That’s two infractions in one, but it still wasn’t all that serious. The guy got brought into me, and I expected to resolve the issue quick enough. But he wouldn’t take a plea deal! I patiently explained that he could get off with Class I Reeducation and get it all behind him without too much trouble. But he said no! I told him if he didn’t take the plea, that would automatically raise the charges to class II, and that’s serious. Why not take the deal?
He told me, and it’s been close to a year now, but I still remember, “I don’t need anybody’s permission to plant flowers in a flowerpot and water them.”
I looked at him like he had two heads! If the Thought Pronouncements say you need a permit, then you need a permit. I told him that, and he just shook his head. “I am a free man. You can do what you want to me, but I will not give up my freedom just because you demand permits!”
I had never encountered anything like this. I couldn’t decide what to do. This whole thing was about flowerpots and water. He needed a permit, which is not that hard to get, and then everything would be all right. I wouldn’t normally do this, but I didn’t want to go hard on this old man, so I told him that if he got the permit, I’d just drop the whole thing. He said no!
“I’ve watched this all develop, my whole life,” he said. “It gets worse and worse. One thing after another. Now you can’t live a basic life and express a basic thought without getting permission. I’m done. I’m not doing it. Do what you have to do, but I won’t be getting a permit, I won’t be pleading guilty, I won’t be going to any damned Reeducation, and the Thought Police can just stick it. I don’t care!”
I wanted to further explain the ramifications of what he was saying. The trouble is, what he said made sense! They’re just flowers. Just a little bit of water. I wanted to think of something to say that was convincing to both of us, and I could come up with nothing. It was my job to see this prosecution through, yet I could see no reason for it. I wanted to tell him I was sorry for his trouble, and just turn him lose, but that’s not how it works. If the man completely refused to cooperate, that means nothing less than Cancellation. Cancellation for some flowerpots! I had never had a case that went to Cancellation. That was usual only for seditionists and conspirators and that sort, and the higher-ups handled those cases. Flowerpots?
I very nearly pleaded with the man to take my offer, but he wouldn’t.
“All my life, I’ve tried to keep apart from this foolishness that you people do, but there is just no escaping it anymore. I’m done trying. Do what you have to do. You can do what you want to me physically, but I will not participate in your stupid Reeducation. My mind will always be my own, and you can’t control it!”
I was very nearly panicked. My first thought was that people like this need to be made an example of. Otherwise, things get quickly out of control, as they have taught us about in history class. That’s what my head said. That’s what my education has taught me. But my heart wasn’t in it.
I had a deputy take the old man to a holding cell, and went to my supervisor, I’ll call her Lorna, and filled her in on the whole thing. Surely there were precedents, procedures. Something.
“Cancellation,” Lorna said. “He’s left you no choice. We can be very compassionate here, but we must maintain standards. And we must have compliance. If he won’t capitulate then it is, in essence, sedition. We can’t see it any other way. We can’t let anyone else see it any other way. You’ve done more than enough, bent over backwards. It’s on him. He has sealed his own fate.”
It was getting later in the afternoon, and I decided to just leave the old man in the holding cell overnight. I couldn’t bear to bring him back into the office and charge him with Sedition II, with the recommendation of Cancellation.
I went home. My Bestie had just gotten back from work, also at the Ministry, but in the Office of Equity. I casually mentioned my case. I had to be careful. Even with my Bestie I couldn’t express misgivings about The System. So, conversationally, I told Riley about the old man who would take Cancellation over just getting the permit.
“That’s how some of those old men are, you know. They just can’t adjust to the way things are now.”
“But cancellation is so excessive. The man is harmless. Wouldn’t hurt anyone. Means no one any ill will.”
Riley looked at me, a bit perplexed. “It was his choice, and he’s made it. I’m sick of these people who keep complaining about things, when everybody has such a good life. There’s a reason we have these Pronouncements. They have been carefully considered and vetted. You should know, that used to be your job!”
Yes, it had been. And it had made sense. It still makes sense, sort of. “But he’s just an old man. He has this idea of personal rights. That he doesn’t need permission for every little thing. That he can have his own way of life. Is that so bad?”
Riley’s perplexed look shifted to one of vague suspicion. “Are you siding with him? Do you know your job; your responsibility?”
I had to ease the conversation back down. It would get me nowhere. And so, here I am, back at my laptop in the middle of the night.