The Clock Strikes Thirteen

Not everything ends in a scream.

Sometimes it starts in silence.

With memories quietly swept away.

With a story rewritten so often that the old one disintegrates beneath it.

The past erased—

And the erasure itself forgotten.

Until the lie becomes truth.

And then, one day, it shifts. Just slightly.

A cold wind under a blue sky.

You glance at the clock. It says thirteen.

The world insists it’s always said thirteen.

Then the scream begins.

Not from a mouth. From a system.

Online, on air, in the crowd.

Rage turns ritual.

The Hate has started.

And all it takes to be marked is a gesture.

A hesitation. A refusal.

Maybe just a question.

To mark the paper is the decisive act.

Even if that paper is only metaphor.

After that, reality bends.

Not all at once, but just enough to make you doubt your senses.

It presses into your skull like static.

You hear yourself thinking what you're not supposed to think.

You tell yourself it can't be right.

And slowly, you stop trusting your own eyes.

That’s the point.

They can be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality.

The more obvious the lie, the stronger the loyalty it demands.

There must always be an enemy.

A heretic. A scapegoat.

Not because they are dangerous—

But because someone must be punished.

And once marked, they must be humiliated again and again, for all to see.

That is the ritual. That is the control.

And so we grow cautious.

A little quieter.

Even walking alone starts to feel risky.

Not because anything changed—

But because everything has.

Thoughts must be hidden.

Faces practiced.

Smiles rehearsed.

Orthodoxy means not thinking.

Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.

They don’t need everyone to believe.

Just enough to clap.

Just enough to obey.

Just enough to hate the right people on cue.

A primitive unity is enough.

And those they do not destroy, they change.

Erased and rewritten.

Molded until they confess, or disappear.

It is always a public act.

It is always about control.

Not justice.

Not peace.

Control.

If you want a picture of the future,

imagine a boot stamping on a human face—forever.

Not a threat. Not a wish. A warning.

Because the boots are already moving.

And the clocks are striking thirteen.

There will be no loyalty—except loyalty to the Party.

No love—except the love of Big Brother.

Every victory, every joy, every truth will belong to them.

But always—always—there will be the thrill.

Not of healing.

Not of hope.

Of trampling an enemy who cannot fight back.

That is what they will call “happiness.”

And given the choice between freedom and happiness,

the world may choose happiness.

But it will be hollow.

Because they will squeeze us empty—

and then,

they will fill us with themselves.

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”

This post is part of an ongoing series tracing the collapse of empathy, the erosion of truth, and the machinery of silence we’re all asked to serve. For the full arc—and why it matters now more than ever—start here with the full series overview.

Note: I reject violence in all its forms. Nothing I write here is a call to arms, or a celebration of harm. These posts are warnings, not endorsements—an attempt to trace the patterns of power and propaganda so we might break the cycle, not fuel it. My writing is rooted in grief, in clarity, and in a stubborn refusal to give in to nihilism, cruelty, anger, or resentment. My love is for all people in this world—even those who would wish me harm.