I Am Emmanuel Goldstein

The packing floor was drenched with rain through a hole in the roof that nobody had bothered to fix, she stared into it as the bell rang signalling her lunch break. Her book open, she opened up a chicken salad and ate with one hand, reading with the other. Julia chewed silently at the back of the room and read Anna Karenina, struggling to keep the book in one hand since it was so big. She was roughly halfway through and was beginning to think about how rich, decadent and parasitic this society had to be for their biggest problem to be whether a woman was cheating on her husband or not. She was taken out of the story by another woman who turned on the television with a broom, poking it until she found the 'on' button. The static fuzzed about and then that weird show began to play.

Julia had never seen it herself, but she had heard about it. It was a bunch of nobody politicians, someone small from some nowhere town like her own, talking about the same damned question every week without doing anything about it. "What do we do about the Post-Literate society?" They'd ask and then, like the idiot talking-heads they were, sit around and talk about the 'classics' they'd pretended to have read when they were 13 though, couldn't recite a single character or plot point from, blaming their age. Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights were thrown around as were Pride and Prejudice and Frankenstein. But nobody actually had a solution. Julia sucked her teeth with her tongue in annoyance and tried to get back to reading whilst nobody in particular even seemed like they were paying attention to the television.

Did she think she could get away with turning it off?

No, she wouldn't try.

She couldn't take a conversation right now, her head hurt too much.

She raised her head some ten minutes later, having finished the chapter she was on and her lunch too. The female presenter wore a black bob-cut and a suit which made Julia question the decade it was. It read "GET IN TOUCH" on the screen whilst the woman stated: "if you would like to ask some questions on the show, get in touch with us today. Who knows, you could be sitting here next week amongst the politicians, having your own say..." It trailed off into the background and Julia wrote quickly on to her makeshift bookmark that she would apply for next week's show.

***

Julia had emailed her application and by the time she received word back, she wasn't expecting anyone to say 'yes'. She wondered about how many people actually applied to be on the show and it couldn't have been a lot since, having only applied a few hours before, she'd received confirmation that she would. She didn't eat anything in the evening apart from a possible small bowl of black olives and a few cups of coffee. Her back hurt and her head was still throbbing and so, when she laid her head down on her bed, she held Anna Karenina above her head and read only two more chapters before she was too tired to continue.

***

On the day she was due to go on the show, she had made sure she booked the day off work for which she was told she would not be paid because it was not an 'authorised' reason for absence. She didn't care. She shoved the copy of Anna Karenina into her bag and left the house, walking towards the bus station to catch her first bus to the television studio. She was not going as someone else, she had not worn a suit, she had not bought a new dress. She was wearing the most plain clothes she possibly could and, in her notebook which she had in her hands - she had written notes she wanted to discuss on the show. Having memorised them just in case, she got on to the bus and read a few more chapters of her book.

Once Julia had reached her stop, she climbed off the bus and noticed the weather had taken a bit of a turn. This, she thought, was pretty good because if it were to rain then more people would be inside watching television or at least, a few more than if it were sunny and nice out. The television studio, which on the show looks like a modest almost homely setting, was a large and strange dystopian building of grey and brown. It looked like if your HR manager was a building. No personality, no heart, no warmth. The studio in question was half a floor surrounded by cameras and, the homely wooden floor with the lovely red rug ended where the cameras began. The floor then turned a horrid sickly greyish-blue on which dirty tripod wheels moved and rubbed a mouldy brown into it.

She got her coat off and was powdered up a bit to get ready for the show, people running around with coffee, ushering her about and others simply standing around having looked like they lost the will to live about five years' ago seemed to litter the floor. The presenter and politicians though were perfectly done up in suit and tie, in makeup and hair pieces and in all the bright and pomp manipulation of the day. She felt people look at her with a hard eye because of what she was wearing but again, she didn't mind. She would simply go and sit down when she was told to.

The bell rang for lunch time.

She felt someone push her gently on to the set.

***

Q1: If you are so concerned about the post-literate society and the illiteracy of youth then why are you sponsored by the very companies that are responsible for causing the decline in reading?

Q2: What are your actual action plans to make things better when it comes to children's reading? Do you have any workable plans we can use now?

Q3: As I have researched before the show, the last five answers have been 'children should be reading the classics' - how can they do so without the actual reading skill?

Q4: How far do you think the parents, who do not find reading a skill required in this modern day, are culpable for the illiteracy of their children? Do you think this should be treated at least, as child neglect?

Q5: Do you not think the teachers are wrong for pushing children to read books that, according to research, they don't actually enjoy at all and thus, have no motivation to understand? Do you think this should be treated as a part of the same culpability the parents hold?

Q6: What do you think has happened to the funding of state libraries, mobile libraries and other projects of the same kind - and who do you think is responsible for this?

CUT

***

"Ah there goes Julia, at it again?" A woman on the packing floor ate her sandwiches whilst watching the television.

"Break's over!" a voice shouted.

(1 hour later. A news channel plays in the background. A man can be seen wearing a black and white suit. He's clearly old enough to be someone's grandfather)

Quickly 'going viral' is the episode of the Post-Literate Discussion Panel on which a woman by the name of 'Julia' appeared to claim that every faction of society is seemingly culpable for the illiteracy of today's youth. This includes everyone from parents to teachers, and even to tech companies and politicians. People have posted videos of themselves throwing banana skins at their television, or rotten tomatoes and some got so angry they even smashed their television sets. We go live to the set of the show where it all happened. Jim?

(Jim holds a microphone on the set of the 'Post-Literate Discussion Panel')

It is quite the sight, many are calling for her to be held accountable for not thinking about the dire situations of parents and teachers nowadays. Julia seemed to leave the show with the statement "please remember who the adults are. You. Therefore only you can be held accountable." Well, Julia, we are not surprised since you too, are an adult and therefore you too, can be held accountable. Back to the studio.

***

On the way back home on the bus, she felt eyes on her - people had turned against her so quickly - it had only been a few hours. She went to a coffee shop and hid out for the rest of the day but people found her there as well. She ordered a taxi and got in when, as soon as she went out to it, she found people attacking the car - throwing bits of paper and sometimes glass bottles. Chants of 'how dare you blame us!' came from the window she dared not open. Julia sank in the chair but didn't waver. She simply got out her copy of Anna Karenina and read all the way home. To her surprise, the taxi driver had not seen a thing of the episode and frankly, could not have cared less.

***

Of course, the events of the day had only strengthened her resolve to work hard on her research of the Post-Literate Society. Some strange people had found out where she lived and had resulted into throwing wet paper towards her windows. She was glad she lived three floors up and so, it was more difficult to reach her here. She penned her essay over the next week, it was titled ‘The Post-Literate Society and All Those to Blame’ and labelled 'truth-bombs' under her blog I Am Emmanuel Goldstein. Within the next 24 hours it would be one of the most read essays in the world.

She had released other essays under this tag of 'truth-bombs' before but none had gathered more ire than this. Wet paper still hit her windows into the night as she continued to read Anna Karenina. It was going to be a whole new week but the fight was not exactly over.

***

After hiding out and calling sick into work many a time, she thought it was finally safe enough to return to the packaging floor and approached the train platform where she normally took her route to work. The train was five minutes late and so, she checked her watch every minute or so and stood around tapping her foot. She wasn't paid for the day she went into the studio but again, it didn't move her. What did seem to move her though is the breath of a woman behind her. "Excuse me?" Julia spun around on her heel. The woman was middle-aged and clearly reeked of cigarettes. She was overweight and had a small child with her. The child walked off into a small room where people wait for trains on the platform. The woman simply scowled at Julia. "Can I help you?" The woman's face got uglier and continued to scowl, she said nothing. Julia shuffled slightly to get away but the woman followed her.

Julia turned back around, hearing the train approaching the station - late again, which meant her manager would have 'words' with her. The woman reached out and shoved Julia in the path of the train, quickly and all at once. Someone screamed, but it wasn't Julia.

***

(A day later)

"You're not going to school are you, it's so boring there, can we do something else?" A small girl, perhaps aged 12, walks along a sidewalk with her brother - a boy of 14.

"Do you want to play with me and my mates? We're going to the park and probably going to buy some sweets or something?" The girl nodded back.

"What happened here?" The girl points to the newspaper on the newspaper stand where the title reads "WOMAN FROM TELEVISION DIES IN TRAIN-JUMPING SUICIDE."

"I don't know, sis. I can't read it."