They'll Laugh at You.

Winston had lost. Big Brother had won. The great tragedy of it all was that Winston was not the same man anymore, if indeed he was a "man" and there was even a point in such a distinction as "gender" anymore. He had been irreversibly changed by Big Brother; dismantled and re-engineered to welcome their hatred, their lies, their control over his thoughts and even his own blissful death.

Paul shut the book flat, palms pressing each cover, and carefully placed the aged copy of George Orwell's '1984' back into its place amongst his other books on a dusty bookshelf in his bedroom. The story had impressed upon him many things, but foremost came the feelings of absolute helplessness and despair and depression.

Paul loved books. He adored books. Books had affected the way he had grown; the person he had become. Like strapping a sapling plant to a straight, narrow stick pointing vertically in the air, their authors had pushed ideas and dreams and desires and goals into his head. His goals were those of people who had came before him, his travels had taken him nowhere that had been unexplored, his thoughts were not thoughts that hadn't been thought before: he considered his tiny self entirely useless when confronted with the enormous wisdom and experience of the past.

Yet, he would always continue to read. He swallowed books one after the other with a fervent hunger for knowledge and wisdom, different opinions and perspectives, ideas and dreams. Most importantly, he read books so that he may one day write his own. Yes, he thought, writing was the most important thing; recording something original. That was the ultimate goal.

He spent a moment running the forefinger of his right hand over the books in the shelf, pondering which to read next, but he could not decide. More than likely, he would make the decision in an arbitrary, impulsive fashion and pick a title that he felt suited his mood at the time. Pauls' mood, not that he could help it, was forever in flux. It swung violently and without warning around an invisible axis, causing pain and suffering not only to him, but to all who'd tried to love him. There were times of peace, but in the background there was always an above-average level of paranoia that he could not rid himself of.

When things became too much, he would lie upon his side, hidden by the covers of his bed. His confidence would shrivel and his character would curl, reflexively, into a foetal position with his forehead moving towards his knees and his knees moving up to his chest.

He strolled from the bookshelf over to his bed and laid there, hands tucked underneath the back of his head, thinking for a moment before rolling over: "You could never write. They'd laugh at you." He said out loud in a flat, emotionless tone, as if what he'd said was fact, as undeniable as the laws of gravity.