They Outlawed Love So We Do It In The Dark
Epilogue
In the year 2019, a humble paediatrician, Donald Way, married the neighbourhood kindergarten teacher, Donna. Six years later, Donna Way gave birth to their first son, Gerard Arthur Way. Thus Belleview saw the beginnings of another middle-class family.
Both parents were upstanding and responsible in bringing up their son. Somehow inheriting the knack for the arts from the maternal side of the family, Gerard took a liking to drawing. By the age of six, he had filled every colouring book in the house, while his parents had looked on with fond smiles. Indeed, Gerard spent his first few years in a happy home.
That didn’t last long. 2031 saw a new addition to the Way family: a little brother, Michael James Way, affectionately known as Mikey. In the same year, the Socialist Party won the elections. In the space of three years, they had passed a multitude of new laws. For one, America was no longer America. It was Oceania, a joint country with Britain and Australia. The Party also nationalised the last of the privatised businesses, although both Donna and Donald had managed to retain their occupations. What really impacted the Way family was the change in the education system – it was made compulsory and free for all, and everything, from the staff to the general syllabus, right down to the textbooks, became closely monitored by the government. By the time Gerard had started going to elementary school, what was once the American education system was practically unrecognisable.
Still submerged in the bliss of ‘maximum equality for all’, as the new laws dictate, most Oceanian citizens were indifferent to these changes. But Donna Way knew better. Her ways of teaching became heavily scrutinised; yet, in the beginning, it wasn’t that bad. She could still get away with rationales and justifications, but the suddenly irrationally patriotic themes in the state-issued teaching materials caught her eye. This was when she caught wind of the Resistance. It was just an underground movement at the time, but she was always an idealist at heart, and she truly believed it would’ve made a change. She started helping the Resistance in whichever way she can, while keeping it a secret from the rest of her family.
Once the changes in the education system came to full effect, those under the age of eighteen were systematically allotted places in schools and institutions. There was really nothing the Ways could do but watch as their two sons enrolled in the state-funded boarding schools. Mikey was only eight at the time.
In the first year, Gerard would still return home to visit his parents during the holidays – out of homesickness and loyalty – but as time had gone on, the visits became scarcer and scarcer, until he stopped visiting altogether. But Mikey? Mikey had stopped visiting within the first year. Kids forget easily, and spending time away from your parents, only to be immersed in all sorts of exciting extra-curricular activities at school really kept them away from home. Youth Group was compulsory, and camping trips, self-organised fairs and parades were really distracting. Both boys gradually lost touch with their parents, and eventually, with each other.
Gerard was less susceptible to the indoctrination scattered throughout his education, of course, but Mikey was much younger. While Gerard fared well at school, being the intelligent kid he was, Mikey was really the prime example of the new generation of intelligentsia. The generation that never regarded what they were taught with dubiety, and would denounce their own parents without a second thought. But Mikey was special; he managed to retain the ability to think for himself. When they started teaching more complex concepts in secondary education, concepts such as doublethink, he had no problem at all grasping the mechanics behind it. While Gerard would imitate, Mikey really understood.
And because Gerard never visited home anymore, it was only 6 months after it had happened that he knew his parents were gone. Vaporised. He grieved silently, but he never asked about the details. The truth was Mikey had found out about Donna’s involvement in the Resistance and exposed her to the Thought Police. He denounced their father not long after, finding a romance novel in his study that preached of mutual attraction and loyalty between individuals. Mikey was twelve years-old then, just about old enough to have the anti-sex teachings drilled into his head.
Anybody else in his year group would’ve done the same, really.
The Way brothers both graduated with promising grades and got into higher education without trouble. They were both hired to work in one of the four ministries that upheld the Party afterwards, but Mikey excelled far beyond his brother. He rose to the status of an Inner Party member within the first year, and after fifteen years of working in the Ministry of Love, he’s worked his way up to be on the team that’s actually in charge of the reintegration of thoughtcriminals.
He just never thought that's where he'll see his brother again.
“Under the spreading chestnut tree,
I sold you and you sold me:
There lie they, and here lie we,
Under the spreading chestnut tree.”
– Part I: Chapter VII, 1984
Both parents were upstanding and responsible in bringing up their son. Somehow inheriting the knack for the arts from the maternal side of the family, Gerard took a liking to drawing. By the age of six, he had filled every colouring book in the house, while his parents had looked on with fond smiles. Indeed, Gerard spent his first few years in a happy home.
That didn’t last long. 2031 saw a new addition to the Way family: a little brother, Michael James Way, affectionately known as Mikey. In the same year, the Socialist Party won the elections. In the space of three years, they had passed a multitude of new laws. For one, America was no longer America. It was Oceania, a joint country with Britain and Australia. The Party also nationalised the last of the privatised businesses, although both Donna and Donald had managed to retain their occupations. What really impacted the Way family was the change in the education system – it was made compulsory and free for all, and everything, from the staff to the general syllabus, right down to the textbooks, became closely monitored by the government. By the time Gerard had started going to elementary school, what was once the American education system was practically unrecognisable.
Still submerged in the bliss of ‘maximum equality for all’, as the new laws dictate, most Oceanian citizens were indifferent to these changes. But Donna Way knew better. Her ways of teaching became heavily scrutinised; yet, in the beginning, it wasn’t that bad. She could still get away with rationales and justifications, but the suddenly irrationally patriotic themes in the state-issued teaching materials caught her eye. This was when she caught wind of the Resistance. It was just an underground movement at the time, but she was always an idealist at heart, and she truly believed it would’ve made a change. She started helping the Resistance in whichever way she can, while keeping it a secret from the rest of her family.
Once the changes in the education system came to full effect, those under the age of eighteen were systematically allotted places in schools and institutions. There was really nothing the Ways could do but watch as their two sons enrolled in the state-funded boarding schools. Mikey was only eight at the time.
In the first year, Gerard would still return home to visit his parents during the holidays – out of homesickness and loyalty – but as time had gone on, the visits became scarcer and scarcer, until he stopped visiting altogether. But Mikey? Mikey had stopped visiting within the first year. Kids forget easily, and spending time away from your parents, only to be immersed in all sorts of exciting extra-curricular activities at school really kept them away from home. Youth Group was compulsory, and camping trips, self-organised fairs and parades were really distracting. Both boys gradually lost touch with their parents, and eventually, with each other.
Gerard was less susceptible to the indoctrination scattered throughout his education, of course, but Mikey was much younger. While Gerard fared well at school, being the intelligent kid he was, Mikey was really the prime example of the new generation of intelligentsia. The generation that never regarded what they were taught with dubiety, and would denounce their own parents without a second thought. But Mikey was special; he managed to retain the ability to think for himself. When they started teaching more complex concepts in secondary education, concepts such as doublethink, he had no problem at all grasping the mechanics behind it. While Gerard would imitate, Mikey really understood.
And because Gerard never visited home anymore, it was only 6 months after it had happened that he knew his parents were gone. Vaporised. He grieved silently, but he never asked about the details. The truth was Mikey had found out about Donna’s involvement in the Resistance and exposed her to the Thought Police. He denounced their father not long after, finding a romance novel in his study that preached of mutual attraction and loyalty between individuals. Mikey was twelve years-old then, just about old enough to have the anti-sex teachings drilled into his head.
Anybody else in his year group would’ve done the same, really.
The Way brothers both graduated with promising grades and got into higher education without trouble. They were both hired to work in one of the four ministries that upheld the Party afterwards, but Mikey excelled far beyond his brother. He rose to the status of an Inner Party member within the first year, and after fifteen years of working in the Ministry of Love, he’s worked his way up to be on the team that’s actually in charge of the reintegration of thoughtcriminals.
He just never thought that's where he'll see his brother again.
“Under the spreading chestnut tree,
I sold you and you sold me:
There lie they, and here lie we,
Under the spreading chestnut tree.”
– Part I: Chapter VII, 1984
@fiftyshadesofmrway
thanks for reading and leaving feedback ^_^ much appreciated :)
4/13/14