Public Notice
You have entered the upside-down
The United States now has a Ministry of Truth, just like the one where Winston Smith worked. Freedom is slavery; ignorance is strength; war is peace. We are here. You are being asked to reject the evidence your eyes and ears have given you for what they tell you. This is not a test.
Things may become double-plus-ungood for you and yours if you reject the truth as it is fed to you. If we tell you 2+2=5, goddamnit, it does. We do not care what you have learned or what you know.
You are no longer allowed to know anything except what we tell you, and we expect verbatim regurgitation of all truths we feed you, whenever asked to recite them. We're divorcing words from meaning, so just memorize the sounds. There's never a need to think; henceforth, all non-state thought shall be prosecuted as thoughtcrime, which is the very most double-plus-ungood crime here in Tumperica.
Proceed with caution, as that's the last you'll see of it.
About the Creator
Harper Lewis
I'm a weirdo nerd who’s extremely subversive. I like rocks, incense, and all kinds of witchy stuff. Intrusive rhyme bothers me.
I’m known as Dena Brown to the revenuers and pollsters.
MA English literature, College of Charleston
Keep reading
More stories from Harper Lewis and writers in Writers and other communities.
Letter to my Daughter
You have a choice to make here: are you going to continue the cycle, or are you going to break it? Keeping your son away from me hurts him; there’s no question about that. I thought you were being hurt, and I was trying to protect you, not punish anyone when I kept your grandfather away from you. I have said that I was wrong and I am sorry, but there was never any malice involved.
By Harper LewisExclusive • 2 months ago
It's Winter
Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter — What If? Writing Exercise for Fiction Writers prompts The Exercise —Write a scene involving two characters. Have the point-of-view character presume something entirely different about the situation from what the other character's overt behavior seems to imply. For example, a landlord comes to visit, and the tenant suspects that it isn't a visit but an inspection. Make up several situations in which one character can fantasize or project or suspect or even fear what another character is thinking. The Objective - To show how your characters can use their imaginations to interpret the behavior and dialogue of other characters.
By Denise E Lindquist19 days ago in Writers
Smart phones, Humans and Aliens.
WARNING. I will be tapping into one of your favorite creative tensions: The absurdity of humans worshipping their glowing rectangles as if they were tiny oracles. There’s something deliciously poetic about that contradiction, and it lends itself beautifully to an instructive proviso.
By Novel Allen4 days ago in Poets
Comments (1)
That “we’re divorcing words from meaning, so just memorize the sounds” line hit me in the gut — it feels way too close to how often I catch myself repeating things without even knowing why anymore, just to avoid the hassle. The 2+2=5 bit almost felt less like Orwell and more like exhaustion, like being worn down until it’s easier to nod than argue, and that last “Proceed with caution” felt genuinely bleak, like even caution itself is gone now. Were you writing this as straight-up warning, or more as a vent for how unreal everything’s been feeling lately?