2 September 2010
1984: Twisted
"Do you have any last words, Winston?" O'Brien's nasally voice resonated off the concrete walls of Room 101. A wire cage, filled to the brim with crawling rats, gnawing at the bars and chattering to each other in their various tones, was precariously placed right next to Winston's chair. Winston shuddered to think of what would happen should the rats be released.
Winston rapidly shook his head back and forth. He would never surrender; his loyalty to Julia would remain until the day he died, worst nightmare or not. Steadfastly, Winston refused to give the Party and Big Brother what they wanted most: elimination of human connections, relationships, and emotions. Winston loved Julia, and he always would.
"Tell me what I want to hear, Winston!" O'Brien's calm tone had taken a drastic turn, becoming increasingly frantic. His hand rose into the air, smacked Winston's face with a loud pop, and held its position. Winston would be broken, whether he liked it or not. To O'Brien's chagrin, Winston simply swiveled his head back around and spat on O'Brien's face.
"Nothing you do to me will ever make me betray myself or Julia. Nothing." Winston whispered, softly but with the confidence of a champion.
O'Brien's patience cracked, unleashing a fury which was previously withheld. In a blind rush of rage, he opened the door to the rats' cage. Like bees coming from a hive, they swarmed onto Winston. The amount of rats was so plentiful that you could no longer detect where rat began and human ended. They gnawed Winston until he became unidentifiable, leaving nothing left in the rickety folding chair but human bones.
Apparently, the rats were not done with dinner. If you starve them for a long period of time, rodents can become really desperate. This fact was one crucial detail O'Brien overlooked. After feasting on Winston, the rats formed a wave and overtook O'Brien. His high-pitched, heart-wrenching screams could be heard from floors above, but no one came to save him.
The rats dissipated, and nothing remained in Room 101 except for two human skeletons, an empty cage, a small chair, and a bittersweet tinge of irony.