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Winston left the room just now, leaving O'brien alone to his interrupted work.
Putting his cigarette aside O'brien sighed deeply, highlighting his accurately suited clothing on his broad body structure. He sat back to carry on his abandoned work, though slightly distracted.
His lips unconsciously twitched; he was considerably amused with the scene which had just occurred and kept replaying in his head.
Winston’s case was one that caused O'brien to take trouble, the problem with him was that he was unable to remember real events, and chose to remember some which never happened.
The problem was that he kept clinging to the ideas, memories and beliefs of the individual, in the past based on nothing more than the human mind and memories.
The Party was the one dominating all records and memories, therefore also the one controlling the past.
O'brien, fully believing in the truth of the Party ideology, thought back to the Party slogan “Who controls the past controls the future: Who controls the present controls the past”.
The slogan simply stood for presenting his previous unsaid statement.
Those who could not control their memories, control their mind, while taking an effort in self discipline, will have ended up in the place where Winston was already bound to end. Reducing themselves to a minority of one, choosing freedom over happiness, knowing they will end up all the same- in the place where there is no darkness.
O'brien found it deeply fascinating that someone would choose to do such things while also containing the knowledge of what awaits them on the other side, after having done the thoughtcrime. Like Winston deciding to begin his diary, for instance.
Always fascinated with the human mind, O'brien was quite fond of his position in the Ministry of love. He was already waiting for his turn with Winston.
Being in the position of converting the ones who have done the most crimes against the Party, the ones filled the most with hatred towards Big Brother, he experienced and learned a lot about the human mind. But Winston was different, not only in the base of intellectually different but it was also emotionally that Winston was different.
In an aspect, Winston was the last man. The last individual man who felt and experienced emotions in their rawest form, emotions that were not were brainwashed upon him by the Party. After all, he did not follow the orthodox way and did not believe the Party ideology in his one individually thinking mind.
Well, at least for now. O’brien mused.
Winston considered himself in a way morally superior to the Party. He felt that in his freedom of thought he had gained some sort of advantage over them.
But in truth it was that no individual could ever have any real power over the Party.
Power was, is and always will be a collective thing. Like the immortal, undestroyable and invincible Party.
Individuals can only have power once they are no longer individuals; When they become a part of something bigger and better like the Party, and then they, too, hold that power of immortality and greatness. One individual could simply not win because they are destined to die. It was the greatest failure in O'brien's eyes.
O'brien’s mind then went back to Winston and his naive belief that controlling certain things must have some evidence to make others believe them. O'brien took pleasure in knowing that the Party, that he was a part of, could control anything and everything they wished to.
He was not as naive as to think so; The Party could control anything as long as it was spread, falsified and known to the citizens. Who would there be to contradict it after all? No one would believe them, and even if they did it would still count as a thoughtcrime and they would immediately count as thought criminals. Most were
content enough to live their life with the normalized way of facts to be what the Party decided.
O'brien knew already that he would take special pleasure in breaking Winston. Seeing him so determined to join an organization that it’s whole point was to destroy the Party without any demand and with acceptance of the fated end was both intriguing and enraging at once. Though, keeping up the whole facade in front of him and Julia made it all the more satisfying for him.
O'brien knew that making Winston trust him and then breaking that trust will make it all the more powerful when he finally broke him and converted him.
It was sort of ridiculous to think that Winston believed him just as easily as that, but it was the truth. At least that was one truth that neither could deny, it was a truth that was not within the Party’s parameters, O'briens and Winston’s bond was as real as something could be. He possessed the queerest urge to change Winston and convert him without actually knowing why.
To think of Winston as something soon to be extinct was a usual for him, as weird as it was. Sometimes O'brien was not sure how he ended up where he was but he was content with it. It felt natural enough.
Suddenly he found himself to be considering the possibilities of the end, in the place where there is no darkness. Usually things were just as plain as torture and confession, but he had the feeling that it will be more that that with Winston.
Winston thought himself to be a light in a darkness of unconscious minds, but that was not the case. Rather than that he was more of a thrill in a sea of bore.
But thrill was unnecessary in Oceania, what was needed was decided by only Big Brother and the Party. And if Big Brother has decided that what was right was bore wrapped with obedience- so be it.
In the end, the truth was that Big Brother always watches you. The one way of owning consciousness was a sealed fate. The moment you were conscious you were already dead.