(DISCLAIMER: I do not own 1984.)

In The End

The morning light filtered through the trees and city rooftops when Winston found himself being shoved onto the streets in an awkward manner of silent contempt and cold glares by the guards who so swiftly kidnapped him away to the Ministry of Love, however long ago it may have been. But this information no longer mattered to Winston. He was out! He had survived the horrific tortures of the Thought Police! He had lived through the agonizing fears of his darkest nightmares and even the suffering of feeling his body being torn from the limbs by O'Brian's merciless brainwashing cycle! Had he the strength he would have graciously cursed the men in a rain of filthy words as they drove off into the clouding smog, which seemed to always cover the path back to that mysterious horror of the falsely acclaimed Ministry of Love. Even as the rats in his mind ripped and tore at the wiry bars of their cages, shrieking in Winston's face, coursing grain through his veins in his frozen fear, even if he had betrayed Julia, what remained burning in his chest like the flames of an erupting volcano, a never ending truth that he, maybe the only one of his kind, still knew of and hated with a passion…

Big Brother.

The Chestnut Tree was almost empty. A ray of sunlight slanting through a window fell yellow on dusty tabletops. It was the genial hour of fifteen in Winston's perspective, despite the cess-like smell of crowding men at an aging old bar, sweating gin from how much they drank every hour of the day. Beyond them, a tinny music trickled from the telescreens.
Winston sat in his usual corner, gazing into a half empty glass with a hidden glint of anxiousness in his regenerating eyes. Now and again he glanced up at a vast face, which eyed him from the opposite wall. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption said. Winston's lips played a faint smile as he met eyes with the plastered face, those beady eyes attempting to strike his very spirit down into the dust which created the ladder of the population, staring the figure of questionable liability down with a gaze of his own inner strength. I know what you're capable of, Winston thought with an inward chuckle, Your existence doesn't frighten me. Slowly, steadily, Winston drank down the sour Victory Gin, the same kind his glass had been filled with thrice times before. Eventually, he was gazing down into an empty glass. Unbidden, a waiter came and filled his glass up with another round of Victory Gin, shaking into it a few drops from another bottle with a quill through the cork. It was saccharine flavored with cloves, the specialty of the café.
Winston was half-heartedly listening to the telescreens, uninterested, but bored enough to let his ears absorb whatever mindless babble they may drone out, only for the information to be filtered out of his mind just as quick. At present only music was coming out of it, but there was a possibility that at any moment there might be a special bulletin from the foreboding Ministry of Peace, perhaps some absurd claim that the news from the African front was disquieting in the extreme. Off and on, he had been questioning it all day. The Eastasian army (Oceania was at war with Eastasia; Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia) was moving southward at terrifying speed. The mid-dat bulletin had not mentioned any definite area, but it was probable that the party only wanted that much more time to think up a storyline for such a supposedly large war. Everyone seemed traumatized by the news that kept spewing words out about Eurasia's numerous and abundantly supplied army, which had been said to have overtaken the mouth of the Congo. As heard, for the first time in the war, the territory of Oceania itself was menaced.

A great deal of boredom was filtered out in a large breath of a sigh. The mild intensity of the situation rose a quirk of excitement in him, but knowing better then to be riled up by actions more then likely false, he cooled down once again. In these past few days, his mind had wandered from one subject to the next without much thought. The only one thought that lingered in the back of his mind was his own victory over what no one of the Party could stop. Not even room 101. He picked up the glass and drained it at an accidental gulp. It made him sputter when he realized just how god-awful the stuff was. The cloves and saccharine, themselves disgusting enough in their own sickly way, could not disguise the flat oily smell; and what was worst of all he had downed the entire glass in one gulp. It settled uncomfortably in his stomach, just as the drunken men's belching, smelly presence inextricably mixed up in his mind with those—

Well, he never named them. He knew better then to. Even if he had won over the fight, the war against the ability of the thought police still reigned over everything, even though it was possible to visualize them. They were something he was always half aware of, hovering close to his face regardless of the smell. As the unruly gin in his stomach rose, he couldn't help but belch alongside the men at the bar. He didn't have to move though in order to be with them in some views. It was possible—he never would trust one being in this world again—even though he could never guess just what those men were thinking. He had recovered his natural weight since they released him, as well as his old color—indeed, more than regained it. His features had thickened some; the skin on nose and cheekbones was a mild pink, even though his bald scalp was in the same boat. A waiter, again unbidden, brought the chessboard and the current issue of the Times, with the page turned down at the chess problem. Then, seeing that Winston's glass was again empty, he brought the gin bottle and filled it. In that world, the world that every man here lived in, there was no need to give orders. They assumed Winston's habits considering his frequent visits and long stays at the café to be that of an agenda quite simple. The chessboard was always waiting for him, his corner table (which he made sure was far enough away from all the men left to wander in insanity) was always reserved; even when the place was full he had it to himself. Winston made sure of it, since the feeling of sitting apart from the wrong-doer was always mutual. He never bothered to count his drinks, since the supplies kept coming in innumerable amounts. At irregular intervals they presented him with a dirty slip of paper which they said was the bill, but he had the impression that they undercharged him. It wouldn't have much of a difference if it had been the other way about. He always had plenty of money nowadays. He even had a fine, normal-classmen job, more highly paid then his previous job had been.

The music from the telescreen stopped and a voice took over. Winston lifted his head lightly to listen…no, no absurd news to laugh silently about, merely a brief announcement from the Ministry of Plenty. In the preceding quarter, it appeared, the Tenth Three-Year Plan's quota for bootlaces had been over fulfilled by ninety-eight per cent. It was just as good, Winston decided. If you can't get a laugh out of the mysterious, most likely child-like war, at least the lies of the government were enough to one stifling a chuckle. Ninety-eight per cent, Winston thought, put a decimal in front of that and it'd be true.

He examined the chess problem and set out the pieces in a bored-like fashion, elbow propped on the tableside while he placed each piece one-by-one on the board. It was a tricky ending, involving a couple of knights. "White to play and mate in two moves." Winston looked up at the burning eyes of the picture featuring Big Brother. White always mates, he thought with a slight sort of bemused mysticism. After another moment of thought, though, he smirked. "Black to counter and check in three" he murmured slightly, moving his hand slowly over the board to grasp the black marble knight in his fingers. Even though in the end, the white would conquer the efforts of the black, the black side always held a hidden strategy, waiting to strike at the precise moment. Another whim came to mind as his eyes flew upwards to gaze at the grainy ceiling of the café. Black could have won, it began to say, but all of its labors were erased by the white, into non-existence, taken off the board and thusly, from the minds of every other piece. He may have won many times, but the world will never know because it did not exist in any record, or in any mind. So there's just as equal a chance that black could win over white. Black will continue to fight. White will never truly mate without a fight.

The voice from the telescreens paused and added in a different and much graver tone: "You are warned to stand by for an important announcement at fifteen-thirty. Fifteen-thirty! This is news of the highest importance. Take care not to miss it. Fifteen-thirty!" The tinkling music struck up again.

Winston's head turned. That was the bulletin he had been waiting to hear, to laugh at, to spite. He could only guess still what kind of elaborate story the Party will have made up this time around to give the people another reason to drink themselves "sober". An amusing rush of different anxious feelings went through him at the thought of it, but still he waited calmly and unnoticeably by the people.

The thought passed. He put the black knight back in its place, but for the moment he could not settle down enough to figure the boring process of a one-sided chess game. He let thoughts, instead, wander again. Almost unconsciously (and rather in a test of his own sanity) he traced his finger through the layered dust on the table:

2 + 2 4.

"They can't get inside you," she had said. "What happens to you here is forever." O'Brien had said. They were both true, he decided. True, the torture will remain burned in his mind forever as a nightmare that had long since passed, but still will always hold the ability to haunt around every corner. But, O'Brien had been wrong about his so-called "cure". Winston knew he was right, everyone else was wrong. Majority versus minority. That's how it will always be, whether or not it is being controlled. The inner mind holds secrets even from the consciousness itself. The Thought Police could not read what was classified as non-existent.

He had seen her, though. He had even spoken to her. There was no danger in it now. Maybe more for him, but the day he had re-met her, it was clarified. They had both betrayed one another for their own reasons. Winston to escape the nightmare of rats and to continue his façade of becoming "cured", while Julia betrayed for her own reasons of self-gain.

There was nothing to discuss, nothing to feel towards one another. Winston knew better then to show emotions in public, and Julia had been robbed of them. They sat beneath a Chestnut Tree, a little tune humming in the background emphasizing this event somehow in its own bit of history as they sat quietly by one another in a whimsical daze:

"Under the spreading chestnut tree

I sold you and you sold me—"

A tear stung the back of his left eye, but he would not let it come. It was over. There was nothing left to know or feel. Their love had been only the spark between two people and their flickering belief that the whole world was wrong and they were right. Everyone was right and wrong in their own way, some more so then others. That's one phrase he did remember hearing from the youthful, familiar woman that haunted his dreams, the little girl still clinging to her ragged scarf, whimpering and crying as the woman spoke. In this case, some ideas of the Party may be right, but only because the one's following it believe its right. Winston believed (and still remains to believe) that it's wrong, while he believed that their wrong was his right. It was a never ending circle. Accusation, persecute, innocent until proven guilty, guilty until proven innocent, judgment.

The telescreen was silent for a moment. Winston raised an eyebrow in wait. The bulletin! But no, the telescreen was changing music. He sighed lightly. More time to think up the lavish or tragic tale of how Oceania had won, or how it had lost.

He thought about what he had heard. Africa, was it? A map of Africa appeared in front of his eyes as his mind began to visualize just what it might report. Most likely, the Oceanian army would be tearing through the valleys and towns, while the opposing armies fled in attempt to reconstruct their forces and counter. As this image floated vigorously through his mind, he involuntarily reached out and grabbed on of the pieces of the chessboard. There was a one in two chance of being correct, or being mistakenly wrong. Without glancing down, he slammed the cold piece of carved stone down onto a space on the board. A moment later, he let his eyes open to the real world, he looked down at the chess problem. Black had checked white. His hand lifted the black knight lightly above the board in wonder…

…Until a shrill trumpet pierced through the air, in the same instant the piece dropped onto the board in a clatter out of surprise. It was the bulletin! Victory. It always meant victory when a trumpet call preceded the news. It was all he needed to know. A smirk crawled across his chapped lips. So, Big Brother's unanimous victory over a war with a land that probably didn't even know they existed. Winston nodded in acknowledgment. The only way to feel more powerful is to exaggerate the truth. Eventually, that truth would qualify as a tall tale, however, no man here would even question the words that now spilled out of the telescreen. It screamed "Victory! Vast strategic maneuver—perfect co-ordination—utter rout—half a million prisoners—complete demoralization—control of the whole of Africa—bring the war within measurable distance of its end—victory—greatest victory in human history—victory, victory, victory!"

Men cheered, glasses clanked against one another in a band of happy singing while the Victory gin spilled over the sides of the dusty glasses. It seemed to echo everywhere. Winston shoved himself back from the tableside, letting himself stand plainly to his feet. He turned his back on the blazing eyes of Big Brother and the cheers of his raving followers and left the sanctuary of the Chestnut Café.

Outside in the streets of the evening, it was no different. Crowds were everywhere; people were cheering, rallies of celebration grouped about around ever square. Winston sighed as he shook his head at the scene. He let his eyes absorb the surroundings of the smoggy city: greased rooftops, rusty street lamps, litter-covered sidewalks, the darkened alleys which contained the bitter odor of waste of the hotels many months old…

From the darkness of the coming night, a dull click from in back of him made Winston shut his eyes. He didn't need to feel surprised. He already knew it would come. He imagined again what had gone through his head the moment he found himself in the Ministry of Love. Guards, starving men, his own frail body, and the promise of death which had hung about him so closely, now focused on the form which stood poised behind his back, a shadow in the boisterous cheers of the crowds. He knew what to do.

"Your therapy has been successful. You had such promise. Goodbye, Winston."

Winston's eyes squeezed shut. He dared not move. It was pointless. Instead, he let his mind go free, the burning emotions buried deep in his body run rampant like a wildfire would fields of hay. He envisioned his mother, his sister, the chocolate that had begun to melt in his hand, his being alone. The war, the Party, and most of all, Big Brother. It was a hate gashed in him for all eternity.

As the bullet pierced through the back of skull, feeling bone crack underneath its explosive impact, Winston let all the anger focus onto one phrase, his body falling forward to meet wit his last vision of what he knew was hell: "Down with Big Brother."

He had succeeded. He had won. What everyone thought impossible, the Party, O'Brien, Julia, even those who came before him, he had done. Even though there was nothing left in his dead body to celebrate, the pride that resonated from it was unmistakable. A yell of broken anguish sliced through the oblivious crowds. O'Brien dropped his revolver and let it clatter to the ground, spitting to the pavement as he strode away in fury at he looked back at Winston's dead body. He accomplished what he had so passionately set out to do. White had flawed; Black had overcome and took the first checkmate in history. Winston had won the victory over the Party.

He had died hating Big Brother.

THE END