All I wanted to do was to print the Pokémon. To make colour appear on the paper where it hadn’t been before. The other kids were watching TV, I was in the future, if the future was slow to load and liable to buffer. You couldn’t print out the TV. I had tried second best, photographing it. I was watching the Saturday cartoons and my mother was dozing, asleep enough to let me use the camera; awake enough to tell me which drawer it was hidden in. I waited months and when it was developed my photo was brown where it should have been blue. The older boy would come into the room periodically. He was the one who had asked me what I liked then typed it into the computer. He’d made the Pokémon appear and then left me alone with them. It’s possible there was a romance brewing between him and my sister, and it was convenient to have me out of the way. Sitting in a room in front of a screen looking at the colours, feeling slightly anxious and completely desirous: it was my first experience. Pikachu, Clefable, Jigglypuff, Slowpoke. The white stuff they floated in seemed inadequate: a lonely, misplaced place. I wanted to print them, hold them, make them real.

Željka Marošević is the Managing Director of Melville House UK and lives in London.