Chapter Text
VI
“They can’t get inside you,” she had said. But they could get inside you. “What happens to you here is forever,” There were things, your own acts, from which you could not recover. Something was killed in your breast; burnt out, cauterized out.
A dry chuckle escaped Winston’s lips. He hadn’t slept properly in years. The Thought Police were no longer watching him, yet his mind couldn’t escape. Decades of party-imposed training branded upon his brain had led him to this. He was finally free; but, every time he allowed his eyes to shut, he was back in that horrid cell.
As his thoughts drifted to the day he bought the diary, he couldn’t help but feel foolish. He hadn’t been writing for the future. There was no future. A future could not exist without a past. Winston was a mere speck in the greater universe, and none of his actions truly mattered. Julia was the only one who had cared for him, but not even she had loved him. Winston was truly and awfully alone in the world.
It was as if a switch had been flicked in Winston’s brain. Suddenly he was overwhelmingly aware of the razor blades he had once fought so hard to keep. It was the obvious solution; there was a reason so many Thought Criminals had done it. His doublespeak had suffered while he was imprisoned; despite his “re-education," he still thought of himself as a criminal.
Shakily, Winston rose from his chair. He didn’t allow himself a moment of hesitation for fear he would change his mind. As he stepped into the bathroom, he turned off the light. O’Brien had said, “We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness,” and despite the ridiculousness of the thought, Winston didn’t want to allow him to see what came next.