Both Sides Now

This is an idea that has been hanging around for a while now, and I think that I have worked out a direction in which to take it.

***

Winston
Winston awoke to find the sun rising. He looked out of the window and saw the sky a mix of reds, purples and oranges. He recognised nothing. Why was everything so different? Everything was cleaner. The people in the street appeared more cheerful, less downtrodden. They were all wearing bright clothes, not the dirty blue uniform he was wearing, and was used to seeing. The door opened and a woman came into the bedroom. She stopped.
‘Who the hell are you and where did you come from?’
Of course she didn’t have to ask, she knew perfectly well who he was, after all she had loved him before he had disappeared. To be honest she still loved him after all this time, at least the memory of him. Now here he was again, looking no different from the last time she had seen him. All those years had passed and he looked not a day older than that last meeting.

She reminded Winston of someone, but as he worked in the Ministry of Truth, she was far too glamorous to be anyone that he knew. He knew that something was wrong, but he couldn’t work out what it might be. It was not lost on her that he was looking puzzled, as if he thought he should know her but wasn’t quite sure. She decided that she wasn’t going to tell him who she was, he was going to have to discover that for himself.
‘I’m Winston - Winston Smith. I live here. This flat was assigned to me. I went to bed here last night.’
‘Impossible. I have owned this flat for four years now.’
He was used to coming across different versions of events. After all it was his job to rewrite historical records to confirm the states ever changing version of history.
‘That can’t be right. This flat was assigned to me in 1982. I have lived here two years and have never been assigned another, or a flatshare.’
Winston couldn’t work out who this woman was, why she was in his flat, or why she was asking all these questions. Was this some sort of ploy to expose him as the thoughtcriminal that he already knew he was.
‘What do you mean, been here two years since 1982?’
‘Well, it’s 1984, so I must have been here two years.’
‘Are you some sort of loon, saying you were ‘assigned’ this flat in 1982, and that you think it is 1984?’
He was suddenly aware that she was speaking quite differently to anyone he knew. It was as if she didn’t know the language. Or was this another part of the ploy to expose him.
‘Well, all I can say is that I went to bed in this flat last night, the twenty first of June 1984.’
‘Well, today is definitely the twenty second of June, but the year is 2034.’
Winston collapsed onto the bed. If what she was saying was true, which it couldn’t be, then fifty years had disappeared in a puff of smoke.
‘It can’t be! I can’t have slept for fifty years!’