The Bus - Shirley Jackson

[@seraphik]

first read this in high school or maybe college and it's haunted me ever since. unsettling af. i think my interpretation is that either it's a portrayal of what it's like to have dementia, or she died and is in some sort of purgatory. just listened to the whole thing and now I'm convinced it's from the POV of a woman with dementia. i actually had an experience once when i volunteered at a nursing home as a teenager. i took a sweet old lady for a stroll in her wheelchair. halfway through the walk she became confused about where she was, then convinced she was in a different city and had parked her car somewhere in the lot. i was too young to know better so i pushed her up and down the parking lot looking for a car that didn't exist so she could go home to a place she no longer lived. she was so convincing and certain that i gaslighted myself into thinking maybe she was right, and only visited the nursing home during the day?? or something??? finally one of the staff saw us and rescued us, and despite her adamant protestations pushed her back to her room. she insisted it wasn't hers until he showed her her things, at which point she finally came back to herself. but i can imagine as her dementia worsened there may have come a day when she didn't come back to herself anymore. anyway, that's what i thought of when i listened to this. i think this was the experience of a fractured and demented mind. maybe the bus was one of those busses that take nursing home residents out to activities. maybe the young people she saw were nursing home workers, the "old woman" a charge nurse or the like, and finally when she felt like she was back in her childhood home except different - that reminds me of the real life old woman thinking she was in the city where she lived as a young woman. it's all just delirium and delusion, but to her, it seemed real and uncanny. really unsettling stuff. dementia is truly horrifying.

[@sabretoo]

Thanks for sharing that interpretation, I appreciate it!

[@suecondon1685]

I really get your interpretation, as my mum had Alzheimer's and she said a lot of weird stuff. She imagined she saw things and people, and was so utterly convinced she had been to a hotel in the woods that she nearly had me believing it. My ex husband is now suffering from dementia and believes he is still driving lorries. He tells us in detail of his day at work, and thinks his care home is the traffic office. It's terribly sad and disturbing. Seems their memories and dreams all get mixed up with reality. 😢

[@seraphik]

@@suecondon1685 I'm sorry you're dealing with that 😞 my best wishes to you and your family

[@louisbrugnoni7639]

Shirley Jackson was ahead of her time! ❤️

[@sandramarino4515]

Ricket's Landing Sounds like the name of a nursing home to me. I imagine that dementia might be like being on a bus, trying to get home..again and again.

[@jtoland2333]

"Hell is repeatition." - Stephen King

[@snazzybean]

I love Shirley Jackson and this just popped up in my feed. Very creepy and sad story, very anxiety inducing. Shirley was incredible at creating an atmosphere of quiet dread. Your narration was top notch; I often find myself turning off stories because I don't like the reader but this was perfect. I'll be checking out the rest of your channel.

[@patriciaw506]

At last someone “reported” Old Miss Harper and she received her reward: an afterlife as loveless as herself. Excellent narration. Thank you.

[@neliaferreira9983]

There are a few interpretations of this story: Miss Harper is either - dreaming, - stuck in a time loop, - dead and in some sort of purgatory, - cursed by one of the people she complained about, - or suffering from dementia. My vote is for the dementia. - The author's works are generally emotionally deeper than the simple trope of dreaming. Also, if Miss Harper were dreaming, then she would also be predicting the future in her dream, which adds a psychic feature to the story that, idk, doesn't seem to fit with the forlorn nature of the story. If one can predict the future, one has the power to change it, and Miss Harper has absolutely no power over any event in this story. - The author, to my knowledge, hasn't really delved into science fiction, so time-loop would not be her plot-twist. - Purgatory would also be more religious and less realistic than her usual work. - Miss Harper seems to have complaints about many people, but she never actually officially complains, nor actually voices her complaints, right? She thinks the complaints, but is always quite polite and meek when actually speaking to the people. So there would be noone upset to the point of cursing her to this misfortune. - Because the author really prefers to call attention to real problems, to sufferings of fellow human beings that go misunderstood, underappreciated, uncared for. Specially for women, and specially mental health. In this story, that would be dementia. Miss Harper is demented and most likely never actually left the care-home she is living at, but is wondering around the gated area mixing her hallucinations with the real events and conversations she is having with the staff. What do you guys think?

[@mmeduvennet3316]

9th circle of hell 🥵 so sad depressing how often do elderly people leave this world to escape the hell on Earth? My dad always said there is no hell Hell is here on Earth

[@krclinton]

My father thought the same.

[@MrsWilberforce2]

The most anxiety-producing story I've heard in a very long time! Poor lady.

[@sarahsamaria8283]

What a disturbing story. So many ways to interpret the story. Time loop . Purgatory.

[@thomson872]

Dementia...

[@JJLewis-so1iq]

Alzheimer's

[@tga253]

Very good. Sounds likely a dream she was having on the bus.

[@Robleh100]

This story like the previous one on which I commented, has moments of suspense and anxiety for the listener. I specifically felt at any moment the truck drivers would murder her. But, there is ambiguity too. You can't be sure she is not dreaming all of the events after she slumbers on the bus. At the end, it seems she is looping in a dream state, which would predate many stories that have used that genre. The increasingly surreal nature of Miss. Harper's experience is what creates fearful dread. Jackson also describes the environment with such vivid detail the line between reality and nightmare is erased. For instance, the outside elements that feed into her present circumstance like visiting a person she knows, all make the listener know it's not just a dream. But as the tale becomes more become like a netherworld, a listener suspects she has somehow gotten into a worsening dream. As is her style it seems, Jackson ends the tell abruptly. leaving a listener wanting more, some alarm clock, huh?. The more I consider this story after listening for the 2nd time, it now seems clear that it has a very logical and rational explanation that provides for its surreal aspect. Miss Harper is really dreaming the first time around when the bus driver awakens her. Everything that happens after that is part of her strange dream. At the end, she is not repeating the dream but actually being roused from her dream. So, she only dreamt initially that the sarcastic driver awoke her and put her off the bus at a rain-soaking, nowhere stop, and the 2nd time she really is being put off the bus at the correct stop, fully aware and awake.

[@javieralvarez1072]

but at the ending, the sign at the crossroads says Rickets landing, the same name as in her dream.

[@neliaferreira9983]

@@javieralvarez1072 Exactly. I think the interpretation of the dream is lacking, because that would mean Miss Harper is predicting the future in her dream. More lickely she has dementia, and is safely wondering around the gardens and corridors of the old-people's-home she now lives in, hallucinating.

[@mmps18]

Reading this story for the first time, to me it seems like this story is about dementia (the anxiety, the repetitiveness). My late grandmother's final days were plagued by dementia may she rest in peace.

[@scotnick59]

One of Jackson's finest short stories.

[@violetfemme411]

I have many editions of Shirley's short stories as well as her novel and novella. But u have stories here I've never heard...how can that be? I'm just thrilled I found them! Thank you 💜

[@WindyNightStories]

Thank you for listening!

[@neliaferreira9983]

I've heard that there are stories that the family of the author found only after her death (I think "The Man in the Woods" is one of these). So maybe these stories got printed after the editions you have? Or maybe there are so many different editions that some stories exist is ones and not in others.

[@violetfemme411]

@@neliaferreira9983 Yes. That makes sense. I’ll definitely be looking for editions I don’t have. 💜

[@carolrios9216]

Thank you! I love hearing you read Shirley Jackson!

[@WindyNightStories]

I'm glad you enjoyed it!

[@D5950-h]

So I must share that the commerical before this was a Bible reading app...

[@clevelandplonsey7480]

Why do you think you must share that

[@saintessa]

Mine was for decorative lighting

[@DreamingCatStudio]

Good one! Thank you.

[@rameyzamora1018]

"Deploying her own cross voice." Jackson! Neat one, WNS.

[@WindyNightStories]

Thanks for listening!

[@plantagenant6789]

Weird and disturbing! Love Shirley Jackson.

[@julieshepherd5989]

I'm a new subscriber, loved the Burnt House story. Thanks for sharing. 😊

[@fhuuraliulfr5756]

I read it as her having dementia but then also some sort of time loop.

[@SC-jh9qp]

Reminds me of the 1940s movie Dead Of Night.

[@annohalloran6020]

Horrible to imagine living this

[@tori4622]

And now I’m scared for life

[@thesaltycrone9237]

Sounds like the type of weird dreams I have when the allergens are high

[@tiiito1988]

A like the hungarian movie adaptation Long Twilight

[@margaretjohnson6259]

i'm not sure but i think miss harper got soaked in the rain.

[@evelanpatton]

Circular storyline...

[@laurensammy22]

Bookmark: 10:42

[@ropeburnsrussell]

Well, that was disturbing.

[@citycrusher9308]

So....was ricket's landing her actual home?

[@WindyNightStories]

No, it's not her home. The ending is ambiguous; maybe she's still asleep; maybe she's died, there on the bus, and is experiencing some kind of purgatory, or she's somehow slipped into a strange, ugly different reality. Jackson doesn't tell us, so we have to decide for ourselves.

[@citycrusher9308]

@@WindyNightStories cool. (and very frightening)

[@tomsdottir]

I hadn't realised before before now that the right reader can make a Shirley Jackson story even more alarming than it was to start off with.

[@ropeburnsrussell]

She told the boy on the bus to go back home, but she can't. Really one of Jackson's most disturbing stories. That doll, that traitorous doll!

[@citycrusher9308]

@@ropeburnsrussell Yes, I think the doll was saying ''you are no longer the person I know''. I think the old woman is telling herself she has become a bad person through the doll

[@sibyl5964]

What I get from this story is that Miss Harper refuses to accept change. Until she accepts that the world is messed up, and it is not the same way it has been before (like the house being changed completely), and if she stops acting like everything revolves around her, she will continue to experience these loops of realities til she learns her lesson.

[@WindyNightStories]

Interesting theory.

[@mmeduvennet3316]

Miss Harper learns her lesson? That is a very sick observation scary I don't think I'd ever want to come across you in a dark alley

[@ThePattibeth]

Well aren't you the know it all

[@suzannemoodhe927]

I feel differently. What I get is that she has lived a miserable and lonely existence, and has many complaints (which could easily be valid) due to a lonely life of an older woman in our society. She has no value to people anymore now that she is old. Her mind is slipping and she very well may have died on that initial bus ride. No one even noticed or cared. She is at the crossroads until she can truly make it home. Very very sad story. Horrifying and cautionary from Shirley

[@tazandalsoalastname]

@@ThePattibeth wow, rude

[@davidcolley7714]

Worst story ever

[@seraphik]

bruh. go back to watching your marvel movies