You step into the dimly lit hallway, your chin pressed against your chest to shield yourself from the icy wind. Dust swirls around you as you hurriedly enter Victory Mansions. The air is thick with the smell of boiled cabbage and musty rags. A large, colorful poster hangs on the wall, featuring a young girl with pigtails and captivating eyes, staring at you with resolve.

You make it for the stairs. It was no use trying the lift. Even at the best of times it was seldom working, and at present the electric current was cut off during daylight hours. It's part of the economy drive in preparation for Mate Week. The flat is seven flights up, and you go slowly, resting several times on the way. On each landing, opposite the lift-shaft, the poster with the enormous face gazes from the wall. It's one of those pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move. BIG SISTER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it reads.

Inside the flat a fruity voice is reading out a list of figures which has something to do with the production of pig-iron. The voice comes from an oblong metal plaque like a dulled mirror which formed part of the surface of the right-hand wall. You turn a switch and the voice sinks somewhat, though the words are still distinguishable. The instrument (the telescreen, it's called) can be dimmed, but there is no way of shutting it off completely.

Outside, even through the shut window-pane, the world looks cold. Down in the street little eddies of wind are whirling dust and used condoms into spirals, and though the sun is shining and the sky a harsh blue, there seems to be no colour in anything, except the posters that are plastered everywhere. The young girl face gazes down from every commanding corner. There is one on the house-front immediately opposite. BIG SISTER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption says, while the sparkling eyes look deep into your own. Down at street level another poster, torn at one corner, flapped fitfully in the wind, alternately covering and uncovering the single word INGSOC. In the far distance a helicopter skims down between the roofs, hovers for an instant like a bluebettle, and darts away again with a curving flight. It was the loli police patrol, snooping into people’s windows. The patrols does not matter, however. Only the Loli Thought Police matters.

You turn your back to the window and stare at your cold and small flat. Now, there are some things you could do next. Later this day, you will have the mandatory group sex session for the glory of Big Sister - the Minutes of Mate, as it's called. Maybe you could talk with your neighbor for a while, or attempt to repair the broken lightbulb of your room. Lastly, but not less important, you have obtained a rare copy of a diary, which you keep hidden in your room. Maybe it was time to put it to some use. What will you do next?