Orwell, George — Nineteen eighty-four [591]

Syme had vanished. A morning came, and he was missing from work: a few thoughtless people commented on his absence. On the next day nobody mentioned him. On the third day Winston went into the vestibule of the Records Department to look at the notice board. One of the notices carried a printed list of the members of the Chess Committee, of whom Syme had been one. It looked almost exactly as it had looked before – nothing had been crossed out – but it was one name shorter. It was enough. Syme had ceased to exist: he had never existed. — Orwell, George, Nineteen eighty-four, 591

Note

The erasure rendered with bureaucratic ordinariness — a notice simply one name shorter, nothing crossed out. The final clause collapses death into non-existence with chilling economy.