Member-only story
Resting Nice Face
A discussion topic sparked by “Papercut”
Gabriel is a high school-aged boy who has to spend his Saturdays proselytizing door to door with his Jehovah’s Witness mom. On one of their pamphlet-handing-out excursions, they happen to come up on the house where Clio, a girl from Gabriel’s school, lives. Embarrassment ensues.
As well as fantastical adventures into distant realms, in keeping with the theme of Simon Dillon’s new anthology The Dark Forest Within in which the excellent “Papercut” appears. Since this piece is about a short story as opposed to a whole novel, I’ll just stop right here in terms of the plot.
I will say there is a papercut involved, but that’s it. And that there was one particular thing about the story that I was fixated on.
‘She has a kind face…’
Clio is sitting by herself at lunch, and Gabriel works up the nerve to ask if it’s ok to sit with her. I got the impression that they didn’t really have any classes together or any other interaction during the school day, so I thought it was quite remarkable and brave of Gabriel. I asked my daughter if that sort of thing really happens at school in real life.
She said yes since it happened to her. She was new since she was a freshman and didn’t come in with a built-in friend group from…
