Alternative ending to George Orwell's
Nineteen eighty-four
EPILOGUE
It was a warm night in May and the clocks were approaching midnight. It was lightly drizzling over the city of London, and indeed over all the south-east of what had once been called England.
But the rain did not dampen the spirits of the thousands of men and women of the Brotherhood crowded tightly in Freedom Square, once named by the Party as Victory Square. Even before that, Winston Smith had found it was once called 'Trafalgar Square' in the days before the Atom Wars and when the ideas of the Party had not yet been conceived in the minds of the revolutionaries. This was one of many truths Winston had discovered deep below the floors of the Ministry of Truth, in the secret archives, during the beginning weeks of the insurrection against the Party. Winston passed this on relatively late in the previous year to their leader, Emmanuel Goldstein. Mr. Goldstein decided that for now, Freedom Square would prove a more idealized name, but eventually, as all the country would have to be, returned to their rightful names before the stain of the Party had stripped all identity from them.
These thoughts quickly left his mind like tendrils of smoke. He was standing close to the twin telescreens that were once used to show the executions of Eurasians or Eastasians, depending on the state of war with Oceania, that would take place in different parts of the country outside of London. Winston stood in a place of honor along with leading captains of the Brotherhood Army. He was honored for his exhaustive distillation of information about the true nature of Oceania to the Proles and thereby liberating them from ignorance. His insight of the Ministry of Truth were invaluable to the Brotherhood and its struggle.
Now, he and the other captains were the vanguard of thousands of Brotherhood soldiers celebrating in the light rain in the middle of the night. The horizon was a dull red as fires continued to burn throughout the city and beyond. They could all hear the intermittent periods of small arms fire and the occasional detonation of bombs as Inner Party holdouts still fought fiercely in pockets within the city. Nonetheless, Winston and the captains and the generals were confident that following midnight, maybe even only seconds after, the holdouts would realize their final doom and lay down their arms for the last time. If not, the Brotherhood was prepared to end it, though despairingly. The Brotherhood, above all else, only wished to liberate the minds of all, be them Inner Party, Outer or Prole.
Ten-of, the telescreens were nearly functional. Though Winston reveled in the cheers, handshakes, shouts of "Victory" and "Freedom" echoing in the crowd, he could not help but feel disheartened when he looked at his surroundings. London looked eerily like the photos he had found in the Ministry depicting the same city following the ruinous Atom Wars that swept the world a generation before. The forces of the Party had initiated a terrible campaign of violence in its final desperation against the Brotherhood and the legions of liberated Proles that slowly secured the city, block by block. Merciless bombing and gassings had scarred the city so incredibly that Winston could not conceive it ever being rebuilt. The buildings of the square were hollow, burnt-out shells. Scorched by fire and obliterated by Party bombs.
Five-of, the telescreens were on, blank white light emanating from them. The flood lights marking the edges of the crowd were dimmed. Outside the city, in a field tent, Emmanuel Goldstein, sitting in a chair behind a small desk littered with paper, signaled to the camera operator to begin recording and the broadcast was sent to many telescreens throughout the country, watched by millions of soldiers, former Proles and Party defectors, some still in engaged in heavy fighting in cities around Oceania.
The crowd in Freedom Square silenced unerringly as they watched the telescreen turn from blankness to the spotty and shaky image. Mr. Goldstein spoke.
"Big Brother is NO longer watching you! My friends, with your valiant effort and ceaseless fighting, we are near complete in our liberation from the tyranny of the Party. Throughout the globe his image has been swept away, his banners have been burned from the walls of your houses. His telescreens have been smashed to pieces. In just a few minutes, in the heart of London, indeed where our fight began, his monuments to terror, sticking out from the Earth like giant gnawing teeth, the Ministries of Lies and Oppression and Fear will also be swept away from Oceania forever. And after our victory there will be no more Inner Party, no more Outer Party, no more Proles, only free citizens! We will choose our own destinies; we will live as we decide to live it. From the ruins of this Rebellion will be brought forth a Nation governed by all of us. And with our inherent resolve, we will make an eternal peace with the nations of Eurasia and Eastasia, as they strive for peace and an end to a war that has only served the needs of the Party. The planet will rejoice in a final peace, where all men will share in its prosperity. Generations from now will know of our sacrifice and you will all be remembered for your heroic efforts, for if the world were ever to fall into oppression, may they remember our struggle and rise for their own sakes! The hour is at hand. Many will not be able to witness this final victory from these images as it would be impossible to appropriately convey what our soldiers in London will witness, but they will convey this spectacle to all peoples of Oceania. Tomorrow we begin to rebuild this world in our chosen image. Victory for the Brotherhood, Freedom for us all!"
The telescreen went to black and the crowd erupted into cheers along with Winston and the captains next to him. Winston heard a clock-tower began to announce the coming of the hour, surprised to hear it over the crowd and that such a tower still stood, considering the state of the city. He elbowed the captains around him to break the spell of joy that ensnared them. The captains understood and began to reign in the soldiers. The generals below the screens were also shouting at the assembly to quiet.
Winston turned his face towards the south as did the others. Beyond the river stood those monuments to terror, the Ministry buildings, some parts of the façades were still gleaming white despite the black charring that covered most of them. The clock-tower somewhere in the distance stopped. 12:01. At that moment a great trembling beneath their feet almost toppled some of them, the nearly collapsed buildings enclosing the square shook nervously, Winston feared their imminent destruction. From across the river four great thunder-cracks in quick succession issued from the pyramids. And almost simultaneously, fires tore upward from the bases of the structures. As the fires climbed floor after floor, munitions that were being stockpiled inside, a dangerous error for the Party holdouts, erupted with blinding light and must have evaporated the poor souls that still clung to delusions of Big Brother inside.
The gunfire heard earlier in the night ceased not long after the initial explosions. Winston was relieved that those still fighting had finally realized their peril and surrendered, their lives spared. Tears spilled down his cheeks as he watched the final remnants of the Party burn. Indeed, the Ministries burned for the rest of the night. The people of the city watched unflinchingly for hours on end. The horizon bled bright red and towers of black smoke were seen for miles around the city.
At dawn, the Brotherhood soldiers in the square began to shuffle out of Freedom Square and headed to the still burning rubble of the structures. There, they met up with many other divisions and together began touring the ruins. They found many survivors, though still a greater number of corpses as they climbed closer into the center of where the buildings stood. The Party soldiers that survived threw their weapons aside as the Brotherhood approached them. They were escorted away and sent to the triages scattered throughout the central part of the city, lying down besides Party and Brotherhood injured alike.
Winston walked and climbed to what was left of the Ministry of Truth first. He thought that he might find a token or memento of his own time rectifying history for the Party. It was folly. The site was a stadium of obliterated and blackened marble. The desks and chairs, all metal, were twisted skeletons. Some were even melted into the ground. Party munitions had burned completely and thoroughly. He decided to walk around the perimeter of the debris field as best he could. Climbing mounds of stone, tiptoeing over sheets of shattered glass, and trying as respectfully as could be done, stepped over the innumerable amount of bodies littered everywhere. He was horrified how so many could still follow Big Brother even at the very end. London had fallen to the Brotherhood, yet they continued their effort for INGSOC. This was evident to Winston as he walked far away from the central damage radius and found bits of newsprint that were not totally burned. He picked a few up and read some of the headlines that he could make out; "BROTHERHOOD VILLAINS USE HUMAN SHIELDS AS THEY ASSUALT CITY," this was the most recent, dated 17 April, perhaps the last articles to be distributed. He shuffled through them and found older ones; "VILE BROTHERHOOD-ALLIED EURASIANS BOMBARD AIRSTRIP ONE, TARGETING RESIDENCES, KILLING AND MAIMING SCORES OF CHILDREN." The Ministry had worked tirelessly these past few months. What surprised Winston the most, was the fact that the Party even acknowledged the uprising. Besides the newsprints, Winston saw countless posters, charred at the edges, portraying Brotherhood soldiers suffocating babies, or ripping the clothes off unsuspecting women, their animal-like faces writhing in barbaric rage and lust. The largest ones yet, though, simply had the eternal image of Big Brother himself with captions of threats and warnings to any dissidents. Winston held one up to the brightening dawn; "BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU: NO MERCY TO TRAITORS, FIGHT FOR OCEANIA, FIGHT FOR BIG BROTHER!"
This dawning sun rose over the City of London. Winston, looking around still saw columns of smoke marching in every direction to the very edge of the city. Soldiers were zig-zagging through the ruins, helping the injured, some accepted help, most screamed with childish terror, fearing they would face immediate execution or some prolonged torture at the hands of the Brotherhood, all that they had been told by the Ministry of Truth. Physical structures, like the Ministry buildings, were easy enough to bring down, but the psychological structures, built up brick by brick by the hands of Big Brother, within Party minds would not fall in the same manner.
Winston heard a siren or alarm and listened from close by the sounds of growing cheers. He guessed that during his wandering about, Goldstein was entering the city and was coming to the ruins of the Ministries. The cheers seemed to announce that he had arrived. Winston delicately pushed his way through the restless crowd. There was a particularly high mound of debris, still smoldering at the feet. But Goldstein was not there. They were cheering at a bent flagpole that was planted atop the mound. The flag itself was old. It was nearly devoid of color, but he could distinctly make out a pattern of diagonal crosses overlaying each other. The colors may have been blue, white and red. He elbowed a man on the right of him.
"What is that?" Winston asked the Brotherhood soldier.
"Someone found it under the ruins, deep underground I suppose, in a sealed room. Obviously not sealed anymore. Ha! Whoever found it gave it to our division captain, he planted it," the soldier pointed to a man closer to the base of the mound on his left. Winston pried the soldier for more information.
"Well, what does the pattern mean?" Winston said.
"The captain told us that it was the flag used by this country before the revolution, before the party. I think he said it was called the 'Unity John' or something other like that. Strange name for a flag if you ask me." The soldier began to cheer with the rest of the crowd.
In all his time with the Ministry of Truth changing history, Winston had never seen an image of that type of flag that was now wavering in the morning breeze. Whatever happened next, good or bad, he saw hope in the faces of the people staring at this old battered remnant of a time that was lost or forgotten. He would help this country and this people to remember.
END