Winston Smith sat in the caf" where he always sat these days. In front of him lay the Times with its tailored lies that he had once helped to create when he was employed by the government. At his right stood his usual glass of evil-reeking Victory gin. Today was yesterday and yesterday would be tomorrow. Winston's days were like pairs of boots made in a Party factory, identical and numbingly uncomfortable.

Suddenly, the caf" rocked with a violent explosion. A cloud of white smoke appeared above a nearby building. Nobody in the caf" noticed, nobody cared. Rocket-bombs were constantly raining down on them. They had grown so used to them that the war with Eurasia seemed like it could never really affect them.

The next moment, the flood of tinny music that poured from the telescreen stopped. Winston looked up again. The telescreens had poured forth sound all his life. It was shocking for one to be silent.

In the sudden hush came a deafening roar of low-flying airplanes. At the same moment, Winston looked out to see an endless blue mass of armored war vehicles. This did not impress him since war parades were everyday events. But after a moment, Winston realized the machines were the wrong color. Instead of the green of Oceania, these machines were Eurasian blue.

The putt-putt of helicopter rotors was what Winston heard next, and then he saw a Eurasian helicopter fly into view and catapult a bomb onto a nearby factory. Winston realized that the Party wasn't the only one with helicopters, as he had believed. The factory disappeared. In its place was a white cloud of dust.

Winston wondered how this could be happening, how Eurasians could have smashed through the invincible ranks of Big Brother. Could it be that Big Brother was not invincible? Winston saw a squadron of Oceanian planes fly into annihilation as they were hit by Eurasian anti-aircraft missiles. So air-power didn't always work!

Winston wanted to go home, and although he only lived two blocks away, he was afraid to attempt the trip on foot. So he left the caf" and looked for a car he could use. The only one on the street was a toxic-waste dump truck full of waste. Winston forced the lock (Party factories didn't make very effective locks) and punched the starter button.

As soon as the engine started, a little blue Eurasian patrol-jeep zoomed out of a side alley and headed for Winston. He gunned the engine and raced down the street, but the jeep was only a few feet behind him and he could see a man in the open back setting up a mean-looking machine gun on a tripod. In despair, Winston wondered what to do. Then he hit the DUMP button on the dashboard. With a vicious hiss the patrol-jeep was swallowed in acidic green slime.

Winston reached home with no other problems. A few minutes after the patrol-jeep incident, Winston sat in his apartment looking out the window. He could see the huge fires around which the invaders were gathered. He knew they would not fight anymore tonight. They had taken the city and tomorrow systematic pillaging would begin. As Winston looked out at the city, dotted with the enemy's fire, he realized that Big Brother was not omnipotent. And he realized that, contrary to Party doctrine, war was not peace. n