P.A.N.I.C.: A Short Story

La storia che George Orwell avrebbe scritto se fosse vissuto nell'era di YouTube.

Bandera UK
Rachel Roberts

Speaker (UK accent)

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P.A.N.I.C.

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I’ve done it! Success beyond my wildest dreams. My YouTube channel has hundreds of thousands of likes and Mr. Blake’s ratings are soaring. Just now I was watching the news on TV while I had my morning cup of tea and biscuit and there it was. A violent demonstration in London near the Houses of Parliament and some of the demonstrators were wearing — guess what? — P.A.N.I.C. T-shirts!

I’m not sure exactly when it started, but I remember a growing sense of unease. Whenever I picked my grandchildren up from nursery I couldn’t help noticing that so many of the other families were immigrants. I mentioned to one of the teachers that there were a lot of ‘foreign people’ at the school — that’s not exactly the way I said it, I used another term which has always been perfectly acceptable — well, when I mentioned it to the teacher, her eyes sort of glazed over and she said, very coldly, ‘Yes, we do have a lot of ethnic minorities in our catchment area.’

As she spoke I felt suddenly cold. She was like a robot repeating something she’d been told to say, and I knew then that she’d been ‘got at’. It was exactly the same when I complained to the manager of my local supermarket about most of the fruit and veg coming from other countries. I mean you don’t know who’s touched it, do you? The manager suddenly got that same vacant look and said very automatically that the produce was of excellent quality. 

I knew that there was something deeply wrong with society, but I wasn’t able to put it into words until I saw that nice man Nathan Blake talking on the TV. What a great politician, like those from the good old days. He dresses smartly and he’s immensely intelligent. He even quoted something in Latin during his speech, which proves he’s a real intellectual. He talked about how we should make this country great again, just like in the past. He wants to close our ports and stop people coming in who don’t share our values. I felt such a sense of relief as he explained. And a light came on in my brain when he said the word: ‘conspiracy’.

That’s it. There’s a conspiracy among most politicians, entrepreneurs and other influential people. They want to control us and deprive us of our most sacred values — like our religion for example. It’s a kind of cabal and these people are infiltrating local governments, businesses and schools. That’s what I meant when I said the nursery school teacher had been ‘got at’. I think she’s been quite literally brainwashed.

Well, after I heard that nice Mr. Blake speaking with such insight, I just knew I had to do something to help him. My nephew Andrew is a real expert with computers and he helped me to start up my YouTube channel. I decided to remain anonymous — we mustn’t look for gratitude when we do good deeds, after all — so I called it ‘The Unbelievable Truth’. Andrew tells me that people are much more likely to read something that seems impossible. He says it’s all about our innate human desire to dig deep and get hold of secret information. 

Andrew even managed to get me a voice modifier for less than £20 on Amazon. It makes me sound very strange,  neither male nor female, and yet somehow like an oracle. Which of course is exactly the effect I wanted.

Andrew and I invented catchy phrases, like: ‘I have an important message for you’, ‘I can no longer keep quiet’, ’I work for the government and have A-level clearance — so I have access to top secret information’.

‘A-level’ clearance doesn’t mean anything of course, but people will think it means advanced level.

I don’t appear in my videos — I just carefully select items from the news and other online images and put them together in such a way as to prove my point. Andrew taught me and I’m getting very good at creating a credible story. Even if I use a bit of artistic licence, the basic message is 100 per cent true. And at the end of every video you see an image of our code word: P.A.N.I.C.

I knew Nathan Blake had understood when he said the word ‘panic’ at one of his rallies. “There will be panic on the streets.” That’s what he said, and I knew it was a message for me. I immediately tweeted at #unbelievabletruth that he had endorsed our movement and by the next day the number of YouTube subscribers had quadrupled. 

Just now I saw news footage of a demonstrator fighting with police in the heart of London and wearing a P.A.N.I.C. t-shirt. I’ve never felt so proud!

 When I’ve finished my tea I’ll post a little video confirming that our mission is all but accomplished.

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