The Ministry

The Ministry

It was a dust-filled day in the midst of autumn. The ashes from the trees fell silently on the scarred and tattered ground which stood beneath the two travellers, one of whom was a small boy of around ten years of age, innocent blue eyes and relatively tall in stature considering his age. The other, a chiselled faced, well built man of around forty, stood beside him; the sparse wrinkles upon his face being cleansed of the dust that dwelled inside them by the cold breeze of the coming winter that softly shook the shattered empty trees scattered around the remains of the broken compound into which they ventured.

A vision of blasts and burning flashed into the sight of the man, his eyes twitching as he stood silently in an unbreakable trance. The boy, letting go of his hand, looked around the area, scanning for possible vending machines or dustbins that within, some source of food or drink may be hidden. Suddenly, with a sharp twist of the neck and an unanticipated thud to the back of his thigh by the young boy, the man snapped out of the delirium that had encaged him for a good five minutes.

After concluding there was no food around, they gradually moved on towards the cityscape that dwarfed the surroundings; cracked and skewed from the craters as a consequence of a year of the nuclear war- the war they had barely survived. The reused rooftops excavated to create shelters (shelters that, in the majority, failed outstandingly) flooded their eyes as they walked through the architecture that was once so full of life. As they dug their way into the centre of the city, an iron slate connected to a large lump of stone found itself opposite the boy. On it only the simple words “Here Stands London”. Underneath it, a larger, more prominent engraving was carved, in some places, overlapping the engraving of the other. The text, in a more systematic, mechanised font, read “Airstrip One”.

The boy ruffled his feet through the settled dust that lay, motionless, across the grey, dreary surroundings. His eyes followed a large rat (consisting of parts of what appeared to be some sort of shell) as it ran up the half erected lamp-post stood before them. Behind that, not far in the distance, there stood a vast mountain of rubble, embracing a wide building that towered no more than forty or fifty feet in the air. The man’s eyes followed the path of the boy’s. Looking up, all went black in his eyes. A greyscale tinge of light slowly seeped into his sight. As it expanded, flooding his mind with fear and remains of memories, he began to see what stood in front of him-what was there before. The building rose to over forty stories: there were no windows in it all; around it, a maze of barbed wire entanglements. He thought to himself, was this the same building he had been looking at before? Where had all the rubble gone? This building he could see, it dwarfed the surrounding architecture.

A sharp thud struck his thigh again. In almost an instance, the blackness came and disappeared into the distance to which he was now looking upon. The hills rolled over the broken city, stopping at nothing; they simply dumped their mass upon the decaying frameworks of what were once homes. The child crouched down and moved towards the outer boundaries of the building, slowly navigating himself through the labyrinth of barbered wire that guarded the relic like construction.

After some weaving, he found himself next to the wall. It was grey, much like the rest of the wasteland, but there were no cracks. The wall was pristine. Upon it hung a poster; the face of a man of about forty-five, with a heavy black moustache and ruggedly handsome features, situated above the words “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU”. Reading it sparked the vast tanker of curiosity in the boy’s mind. His feet carried him down the ruins and towards the entrance, his father yelling behind for him to wait while he followed.

He stopped. The man behind him stopped also in synchronisation, almost ten metres between them. A large iron door shadowed them both. Softly, the breeze brushed their faces; the boy’s hair catching his eye as it did. After taking one last look at the destroyed landscape and the rubble from whence he came, he ventured on into the mouth of the beast. The sound of dying wind filled his ears and silence joined the blackness of the room to which he entered, only to be broken slightly by the sound of his father’s voice beckoning him back. A short gust burst into the space, slamming the door closed as it entered.

The constant heartbeat of his father’s fists slamming the iron gateway suddenly ceased. A silence fell over him as it adjoined its self to the blanket of darkness unravelled over his sight. The heartbeat began once again. It was different than the former. It was his. As before, it dropped into silence.

(Use of quotes from 1984 by George Orwell)