This story is my second favorite in the Bradbury 13 series. The Screaming Woman, found in S is for Space (and The Stories of Ray Bradbury), is one part scary, one part frustration and anxiety. This story is narrated by ten-year-old Margaret Leary. One hot July Saturday, her mother asks Margaret to run to the store to get some ice cream for lunch. She takes a short cut through the empty lot behind her house. On her way back through the lot with the ice cream, Margaret hears the Screaming Woman.
"It was coming up out of the ground. A woman was buried under the rocks and dirt and glass, and she was screaming, all wild and horrible, for someone to dig her out. I just stood there, afraid. She kept screaming, muffled. Then I started to run. I fell down, got up, and ran some more. I got in the screen door of my house and there was Mama, calm as you please, not knowing what I knew, that there was a real live woman buried out in back of our house, just a hundred yards away, screaming bloody murder."
But no one will believe a ten-year-old's wild story of a woman buried alive in the empty lot. But she heard it! And Margaret is determined to make someone listen; to save this Screaming Woman.
I love the narration of this story. It just flows, and you just want to reach in and shake those grown-ups. 'Listen to her!' This story pulls you in, and won't let go until you reach the end. The radio drama (on twilightzoneradio.com) is excellent, following very closely to the original. This story was also done on Ray Bradbury Theater in 1986, and stars Drew Barrymore. It is posted on YouTube in 3 parts. (Search Ray Bradbury Theater: The Screaming Woman) Some of the details have been changed from the original, but it's pretty good, too.
Please enjoy. It's one of the best of the Bradbury 13.
1 comment:
This is one Julie always asked to hear. It is pretty fun. There is a TV version of it with Drew Barrymore. I found it on DVD for like $1. Some day I'll have to let you borrow it.
xo -E
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