失敗

At age ten Frankie sat in front of the standard high-definition television no different from the one her parents watched at close to the same age.

“I’ll kill you and make everyone forget you, Die Rangers!”

The colors on screen were so bright and frenzied to her at the time that they served much the same purpose her favorite books did, sometimes better. It was still white noise to her developing brain- but that white noise was easy to focus on when everything else around her felt muddy and vaguely threatening, as it always had to the girl.

Katie never watched with her, much preferring nonfiction productions like All These Parks. Both experiences were aspirational living for the sisters, though only the older one had a feeling she’d get there eventually- whereas the kid rewatching the same episodes she didn’t understand over and over again couldn’t even imagine that there was anything more for her than this- just sitting, watching. Never participating. Because she’d already been taught at that point that doing that hurt. It hurt a lot.

She had no idea that one body of water away, someone like her was participating- and she was watching the very fruits of that labor.

<This new Die Ranger thing is doing great, Miyanno! This is the most viewers we’ve had since your magnum opus. Say, why don’t I treat the office to drinks?>

The director looked at her damaged and aging hand, still clutching the mouse he was currently working with.

<You go on ahead. I don’t feel like celebrating.>

<What’s the matter? Don’t tell me you haven’t seen the amounts of trickery we’ve been able to sell already. You could stand to be proud of yourself for once!>

<I will have plenty of time to be proud once I actually achieve something.> 

Her voice coldly echoed the sentiment he had expressed so many times before, as if out of habit.

Her co-animator left after that. There was no point talking to the park’s owner, their star director and animator- not while the team was still working on something.

Miyano cursed herself as she scrubbed over footage of today’s episode. 失敗.

失敗. 失敗. 失敗. Again and again.

Another failure.