2002-05-17 - 4:18 a.m.

2040AD of the Gregorian Calendar. But after years of successful campaigning, the denizens were accustomed to referring the year according to the Rafflesian calendar... 2040 became 30AH (ie, After Henry)...

Spurs sighed, with his old eyes, he met monstrosities trawling the streets of his once-hated Songopure, men and women barely recognizable from all the machinery hardwired into their bodies. On the great mile of Orchard where he once led his glory days, he was careful not to lift up his eyes to meet the gazes of the men wearing Red and White... it could mean a visit to the Ministry of Love located on the island of Suntesa.

Songopureans had became silent ghosts, divided along castes.

Spurs threw back his only possession, his precious boon of thought,to 35 years back: as like many young Songopureans then, he has had harboured the hope of leaving... for a greener pasture... What he didn't know was that all his conversations were tapped. The propaganda machinery went on a blitzkrieg after 'Operation Anti-Migration', construed values were amalgated into the notions of the already brain-dead Songopureans.

Spurs was lucky, he lived to see the daylight after repeated medication of Soma pills and Pavlovian-conditioning (aided by electrocution treatments, no less)... records of his previous existence were erased; a new identity and a caste of an epsilon-plus was created as his new persona.

It took almost 20 years to get used to his new-found personality. Words used were ugly and painful... brief flashes of his previous existence came in angry spasms tearing in his brain... but yet, he could make no head or tail of it -- except for one episode: he uttered the words 'Big Brother is great', and was released from the Ministry of Love.

Refused by his family and scorned by his friends. Life was a tar black age... and death was reluctant to embrace him...

*************************************************

Spurs popped the last Soma pill in his pocket without as much as lifting his head. He yearned for the days when music was tolerated, now all he heard were mechanical renditions of the Great Anthem:

(Sung to the tune of 'Count on Me Songopure')

'The was a time, when nations thought Songopure was oppressive

But we didn't

We built a Prison, Strong and Mean

Reaching out for foreign investors

For Peace and Money'

Spurs let out a laugh, which was a fatal mistake. The Red and White men were alerted and walked towards Spurs, menacingly stroking their batons with palms of steel.

'Why are you laughing?', the stern voices barked in unison, 'don't you know it's against the law?'

Spurs shuddered and kept chanting the life saving mantra:'Big Brother is great, Big Brother is great...'

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