EVEN THE RATS WERE CRYING

Is 1984 really a disturbing dystopia? Or is it a timeless love story like The Way We Were? Read the story, listen to the song, think it over and then respond!

Winston Smith was the golden boy of the Ministry of Truth. Everything came easily to him, whether it was making up stories about Comrade Ogilvy or dropping facts down the Memory Hole.

Then one day everything changed. The usual crowd was going through the motions at the Two Minutes Hate. Winston was goofing around with his best pal O'Brien when she walked in.

"Look at the sash on that one," O'Brien wisecracked, carefully resettling the spectacles on the edge of his nose.

"She looks like a girl who knows how phony everything is." Winston was intrigued by the angry, dark haired girl. He could tell she hated fakes just by the way she threw her Newspeak dictionary at the telescreen. Winston was turned on by her energy and passion, but also a little frightened.

Secretly Winston felt himself to be the biggest fake of all.

Was it ever all so simple? Or has time rewritten every line? Winston was writing in his diary, trying to remember life before the Revolution. We laughed more and we cried more.

"Down with Big Brother! Down with Big Brother! Big Brother is Un-good! Big Brother is Un-Good!"

Every day Julia stood outside the Ministry of Truth, a one woman protest movement. Sooner or later the thought police would come for her, but Winston knew he could charm them if they showed up. Winston knew he had the golden smile. He was the Outer Party boy with the Inner Party smile.

"Feel like getting some thin, watery stew with haricot beans?"

"I love you," she whispered.

They laughed together, they cried together. They made love in meadows full of bluebells, and in filthy bug-filled apartments. Winston told Julia things he had never told anyone before. His first wife didn't like sex enough to make the marriage worthwhile. He was afraid of rats eating his face.

"Don't you believe in change?" Julia asked. "It's our duty to fight for a better future, even if we never live to see it!"

"You're so . . . serious, Julia." Winston felt pained by her idealism. She was so very young. "Everything that happens in the world does not happen to you personally."

O'Brien invited them to join his secret revolutionary movement. Winston knew it was a set up. Dissent was doomed. Still he liked O'Brien. Whenever he resettled his spectacles on his nose he seemed passionate and sincere.

"We can change the world just by being passionate and sincere," O'Brien said solemnly.

"Passionate and sincere," Julia echoed.

Winston was naked and on top of Julia when the Thought Police came. He suddenly realized that he had never loved Julia as much as he did right now. But it could never have lasted. Julia wanted to change the world. Winston just wanted to write naughty dramas for the telescreen and drink Victory Gin.

"And that's when I realized the truth," Winston sobbed, groveling at O'Brien's feet in a cell somewhere deep in the Ministry of Love. "Julia is that one special girl. But I love Big Brother!"

"It's all right, Winston," O'Brien said, carefully resettling his spectacles on his nose. "Big Brother will forgive you, and you will no longer fear him after you have . . . changed. Now let's go."

Winston had always known how their story would end. Down in Room 101, he told the story of his love for Julia one last time. Even the rats were crying as the cage settled slowly over his face.

Memories may be beautiful and yet . . . what's too painful to remember, we simply choose to forget.

Winston put away his diary. Since his release, he had more time to write. Yet strangely, nothing mattered anymore. He walked down to the park, shivering in the cold. And all at once he saw her. It was Julia. She was still protesting.

"I love Big Brother! I love Big Brother! I love Big Brother!"

"Looks like you've finally accepted reality," Winston remarked. "Did they torture you too?"

Julia looked away. "They made me watch that film . . . you know the one I mean. The golden boy and the bossy cow who won't shut up. It was worse than torture. I begged for them to stop. But then I realized that it was us. That was the way we were."

"The way we were," Winston said sadly. Those words summed it up perfectly. He felt as if he'd just lost the best part of himself. And somewhere the clocks were striking thirteen.