Status Updates From Kallocain

⭐️Ch.3”If my marriage did not improve, I would get a divorce. But not until the children were past home age.“

Ch.3”…that power was increasingly becoming an oppressive encumbrance at precisely those moments when I yearned most wildly for Linda, and for the never-attained and never attainable miracle that would make me lord of her innermost mysteries. The eye I had wondered about was still there, but the eye was Linda herself.”

Ch.3”Whereas earlier, even in my most intimate activities, I had mainly speculated about how I was valued by the power that also made use of the eye on the wall, nowadays…”

Ch.3”Also, from the very outset I had not objected to someone higher up making sure that I was a man. It had rather been a spur to action. Our nights had been bathed in a shimmer of ceremonial display, where the two of us were nothing but solemnly inspired and conscientious performers of a ritual in the sight of the State. But over the years a change had taken place.“

Ch.3”Our World State certainly did not take an ascetic view of sex, for on the contrary the breeding of new fellow soldiers was a necessary and honourable task, and every effort was made to see to it that as soon as they reached the age of maturity men and women had an opportunity of fulfilling their duty in this regard.“

👁️‍🗨️Ch.3”Later, when I obtained such an intimate view of the family lives of various fellow soldiers, I could not help making a close connection between the police ear and police eye and the unsatisfactory curve of the birth rate within the World State. But I hardly think it was because of them that my blood ran so thin nowadays. At least, it had never been like this before.”

Ch.3”On the wall sat the police ear and beside it the police eye, equally effective in darkness and in light. No one could think them anything but well-motivated: what hotbeds of espionage and conspiracy the parents’ rooms might otherwise become, especially if they were also used as guest rooms!“