The country was going through a severe rape problem, 9 in every 10 women said they were sexually assaulted. The problem was threatening to destabilise the Tody-led govt, which was busy making a multi-billion statue of his father. It was going to be the biggest statue of a father ever built in the entire galaxy.
“What are you going to do? We have only a year before we go to polls, this rape problem could bring us down”, Tody exclaimed at an all party meet.
“We should have never given women the right to vote,” a minister fumed.
Some others nodded in unison.
Melissa, the only female leader made a fist out her hand, but said nothing. She was in the cabinet as a token, to represent her sex.
“Why don’t we draft a new legislation and revoke their right to vote” someone suggested.
“Don’t be stupid, Tody won a lot of votes because he was voted the sexiest leader alive, we will lose out precious votes” someone else said.
Tody was a devout yoga practitioner, and his abs did get him some votes without money.
“I have an idea,” Rex raised his hands while he bit a nail of the other one.
“What is it?” Today asked.
“There is a country that recently decided to hoist flags on all its universities, because it is facing a problem of rising anti-national sentiment in the country, how about we put Lady Thressa’s photos everywhere, at locations known to be unsafe. That should deter men from rape. As we all know, Lady Thressa is almost a god of sort for us, she is the mother of our nation, a mother to all, she preached peace, if someone sees her photo, there is no chance in hell that he would commit a crime,” Rex explained.
“Her face does make me feel peaceful,” someone said.
Tody loved the idea, he had never heard such a brilliant idea in all the six years of his school life.
“Brilliant” he said.
Soon, millions was being spent in painting Lady Thressa’s face everywhere. She was on walls. On buses. On hoardings. There were flags made with her face. Graffiti. Station stalls had her face. Some loved the move.
A week after the move.
Sarah, a second year student of science was walking back home with a teddy bear in hand for her niece. She had been working late in the college library on a project and it had become late. The lane she was passing was flagged as an unsafe area, it was deserted, but Sarah was not scared, there was a Lady Thressa flag proudly flying at the end of the lane. She smiled as she kept walking and then heard footsteps behind her.
Ignoring the sound, she kept walking, but the footsteps grew rushed and soon someone grabbed her hand.
“Where are you going my doll?” a gruff voice sneered.
“What are you doing, leave my hand,” Sarah said panicking and saw that it was grown man with a friendly face.
But he pulled her roughly towards himself in one jerk and held both her hands in a tight clasp and started ripping her clothes.
Sarah screamed as she tried to break free from his vicious grip, the buildings around them were all deserted, nobody could hear them.
He slapped her hard and hit her on her head, knocking her almost unconscious. She begged him to stop. He wouldn’t.
She looked at the flag with Lady Thressa, it was now just two feet away from them. She tried gesturing him to look at it.
“Have…. shame… look…. Thressa…,” she struggled to mouth those words as her senses failed her.
He looked at it and laughed. And then hit her again and started to thrust himself violently inside her.
She fell unconscious.
After he was done, he got to his feet and looked at his moist hands. He grabbed the flag with Lady Thressa’s face and wiped them in it.