Satire (Maybe)
It was a bright cold day in April, the clocks were striking thirteen.
Winston understood it would be a long stretch at the memory-hole: Big Sister had retro-spoken, the past would now need to change. He must not pause.
Leaning forward at his desk Winston’s eyes traversed rapidly, tracing the lists of wrongthink malquotes; the press conference of 27 March when Big Sister had admonished butchers, saying they, and bakers and greengrocers must close, when she deplored the possible waste but never mentioned that they might continue to trade online to avoid it. This, all of this, would need to change. The implorings from the nation-wide meat chain to be allowed to trade would be better unsaid than rectified. She hadn’t mentioned online-trading once in those detailed exchanges, yet many had been equipped for it.
The pleadings of the pork industry for relief, of stockpiles of animals which would need to be culled; they could be retruthed to rightspeak of Big Sister’s compassion in allowing them to supply supermarkets only, “strictly wholesale”.
But it was the Ministry’s advice with such very deep reach; across the breadth of the interweb where proles may dwell, there; first, very first, on the page ‘Essential businesses’ (doublespeak meaning they certainly were not) was the ungood malquote wrought large: “Butchers and bakeries…must close.” Must close. Must. It was the must, it was the most, the most ungood. Doubleplusungood.
Winston would remove these malquotes first, foremost. Winston worked correctly at the memory-hole, he worked through the night. There were pages to unweb and caches to retrieve. Big Sister had retro-spoken, the past had to change.
Sometime between Midnight on the day of retro-speak, April 6, and 4.53 am the next morning, April 7, in Oceania, the past changed:
Big Sister had spoken, the past would become only what she said it was, that which “we heard her say many times”. Winston went home uncrimed, thinkpol would be satisfied with “a page that” merely observed Truth “doesn’t exist”.
Big Sister is “your single source of Truth” Winston whispered. He was correct.
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