Shingo Brown

23 October 20XX

Japanese Club

IT’S NEVER LUCK IT’S ALWAYS GOD

Shingo, just Shingo. Only Chickarrin calls me Shingo Brown, my “full name,” or better yet “Buraun-san,” but everyone else just calls me Shingo.

And beyond this room, I don’t really know these people. But I still come here to sit around, chat, watch trashy OVA’s and make paper cranes, still.

“Hey, Shingo-san,” Lisa pats me on the shoulder. “what’s your real name?” she whispers.

“Shingo, duh.” I crane my head around to look at her. She’s sitting behind me, her face is flat and cool. She’s a natural blonde with brown eyes, so blonde, so brown, it’s surprising. Expressionless, plain, Lisa S never told me her last name, or anyone else. Why, I don’t know, but because of that, she had no right to know my first.

She leans back. “Pff, You’re no fun…” she says. She had this well-worn fatigue in her eyes, all mixed up with discontent, frustration. It reminded me of the eyes soldiers have in old war books. That look, it doesn’t punch you in the gut until it punches you in the gut, until someone like Lisa S wraps you in plastic and smashes your head with a rock. That look…

She could say some fucked up, cryptic things unprompted, like “A machine that moves dirt has two arms that hold a shovel,” or “What are you gonna do? Give up and die?”

“It’s never luck, it’s always God,” she said to me once.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked. We were sitting alone in the classroom. The others weren’t here yet. It was right before summer ended. Everything looked fake outside. The clouds tasted like angel food cake, and the sky was blue, hard, nondescript and plastic. It was warm, dry, and fake.

She wore a Japanese schoolgirl costume, black skirt, knee socks, her hair was put up, she didn’t answer my question. She said nothing.