That dream, the same dream that haunted her every night, and it was about him again. Only, she’d never met the man in her dreams.... she didn’t even know what country he was in.
Yoshi Rose Lee was her name, a citizen of Paresta, a twenty-four year old woman. She should be joining the rest of the crowd in a few weeks, but she had never been one for the ‘rules’. She wasn’t going to let some “high up” government decide what she should do. It wasn’t their choice, it was hers.
Getting further away from the bed she walked to the window, looking out at all the people stood waiting outside the city hall.
"Hello people of planet earth. So wonderful to see you, maybe the government, who are certainly only trying to protect us by setting us up for failure, will warm you all from the cold with a big warm hug. Or maybe the guy in my dreams can, yes that would be perfect. He could be the guy in my dreams and he could replace the Tarzan of the Jungle with the Savior of Paresta. Oh wait I forgot. Paresta doesn't need a savior. It needs a panda that will shade us with its black spots and fight the government with the white ones. That would be extremely effective." A dry smile flickered across her lips as she watched them slowly walk into the hall one by one.
“Just a few more weeks...” she mused as she shut the curtains. With a sigh, and with her back to the window, she found herself in yet another day dream about that guy.
It happened all the time, whether she was watering the dead plants or people watching from her window, he was always on her mind. It was creepy really, but to Yoshi creepy was normal and normal was creepy. It was the beauty of the darkness that emerged from all the alleyways of Paresta, expect the unexpected. There was just something about him which interested her, like deep down this unnamed man was more similar to her than she ever thought possible. The day dreams were always similar, they were never very important nor were they anything big, but there was some comfort in them. Like she wasn’t completely alone all the time.
A black sheep among all the rest.
That was how Yoshi thought of herself, despite her pale white skin and bloodshot eyes that came from hours of forced work, she was always the one that stood out. The one people would point at. The one they would mock.
Funny thing was, Yoshi did not once complain about this. In fact, she seemed to be content with it. Instead of trying to fit in, she had mastered the art of lonesomeness. That was the kind of person she was, an inventor. A starter. A leader of all things good, the starter of all rebellions.
And so she painted on that blank canvas of hers, painting away until it represented how she felt.
Empty.
She paints a pretty picture, her paintbrush in her fist. The by passers look on, scolding as they move. Who does she think she is? Originality is a sin. But she didn’t care, other people’s opinions didn’t matter, they were all just sheep following the crowd, to slaughter. It seemed as though lives had been resorted back to the Victorian times, men ruled over women. Although women were given jobs, they were not allowed to think for themselves, they were given bottom of the bucket jobs and expected to be the mother, look after the house and keep her children and husband happy.
The faces of each and every woman over the age of about thirty showed the wear and tear they had been through, the pressure and stress of staying as the ‘perfect’ woman, once beautiful faces now seemed worn and haggard. Though their clothes still held a small resemblance to the fact they had tried to dress to impress the other women, each one trying to outdo the one before. To Yoshi, it all seemed sad. Why spend your life trying to impress people and show people up?
The paintings were the past, Yoshi’s life in the country, before she ever had to worry about the government and work... before there was any pressure. She’d watched all her friends, even her own mother, become the ideology of the perfect wife, it had killed her mother, her father had seen her slip one day, and the next; she was gone. Ripped from Yoshi’s grasp. She no longer had a loving family or home; the beautiful country was lost when her mother was. There had never been a funeral. Her father didn’t want to admit what he had done, and after a few weeks, he began to drink- drinking himself into a coma, never to return.
