-oyasumi- Nhk Ni Youkoso - Welcome To The Nhk - -

Oyasumi.

Your neighbor's plants have grown through the wall now. Vines wrap around your ankle. They aren't plants. They are fiber-optic cables from the NHK's basement server farm. They want to broadcast your failure. 24/7. A reality show where nothing happens.

Then the NHK logo fades in.

You pull the blanket over your head. The blanket is a bunker. Underneath it, the world shrinks to the size of a manga panel. You hear the old woman next door watering her plants. She waters them every morning. You imagine the roots drinking, growing, plotting. She is probably a scout for the Hikikomori Eradication Project . The water is actually a pheromone that makes you want to join a cult.

In the last one, the one that loops, you press the play button on a cheap boombox. A lo-fi track crackles to life. A woman's voice, soft as a razor blade, sings: "Oyasumi..."

You close your eyes. The dark behind your lids is not empty. It's filled with a thousand tiny screens, each one playing a different ending.

The NHK fee collector hasn't come in three weeks. That's the longest he's ever waited. He's training. Next time, he'll bring a battering ram shaped like a TV license.

"Did you answer your phone?"

The whisper comes from the corner of the room. Not from you. From the other you—the one who lives in the mold stain that looks like a map of Hokkaido.

In one, you go outside. You buy a can of coffee. A girl smiles at you. You run away.

Oyasumi, oyasumi.

"Did you go outside today?" the stain asks.

"The call was from my mom. Or a satellite. Same thing."

Oyasumi, sekai (Goodnight, World)