I do love Shirley Jackson, but I don't deserve to be named in

Host: The rain fell in a thin silver curtain over the city, blurring lights into watercolors. Café windows glowed like islands, their glass trembling under the weight of thunder. Inside one such haven, the air was heavy with the smell of coffee, paper, and old stories.

Jack sat near the window, his hands clasped around a cup, steam rising like a ghost from its rim. His grey eyes stared into the street, where the shadows of people hurried through the storm. Across from him, Jeeny flipped through a book, her hair damp, her fingers trembling slightly on the pages.

The clock ticked, slow and intentional, like a heartbeat echoing through memory.

Jeeny: “You ever read The Haunting of Hill House, Jack?”

Jack: “Once. Long time ago. Too many ghosts, not enough sense.”

Jeeny: (smiling faintly) “Then you didn’t really read it. The ghosts aren’t in the house. They’re in the people.”

Host: A light flickered above them, humming with the soft menace of electricity. The rain outside thickened, drumming against the glass like fingers tapping from another world.

Jeeny: “Helen Oyeyemi once said something that stayed with me. ‘I do love Shirley Jackson, but I don’t deserve to be named in connection with her… The way she builds narrative pressure in that book is just amazing. You could reread it a few times and actually go out of your mind.’”

Jack: “Sounds like she’s haunted too. Maybe writers are just people who feed on fear.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. They translate it. They turn what terrifies us into something we can touch. That’s not feeding — that’s alchemy.”

Host: A car passed, spraying water onto the sidewalk, leaving a momentary blur of sound and light. Inside, the café’s warmth wrapped around them like a fragile defense against the world’s chill.

Jack: “So you think that’s noble? Losing your mind in fiction? Oyeyemi said you could ‘actually go out of your mind.’ Why would anyone want that?”

Jeeny: “Because sometimes the mind is the cage, Jack. Stories like Hill House… they don’t trap you, they expose you. They show you where the cracks already are.”

Jack: “Or they just mess you up. You start confusing fear for truth. You think you’re finding yourself, but you’re just getting lost in someone else’s madness.”

Jeeny: “You call it madness, I call it intimacy. To be that deeply affected — to feel goosebumps for hours — means the story touched something real inside you.”

Host: The light shifted, dimmer now, casting long shadows across the table. The steam from their cups twined like phantoms, rising and dissolving into the air.

Jack: “But what’s the point of art that breaks you? I get that it’s supposed to make you feel, but if you come out shaken, unsteady, what have you really gained?”

Jeeny: “Perspective. Awareness. Compassion. When Jackson writes about fear, she’s not just talking about ghosts — she’s talking about the walls we build inside ourselves. The rooms we refuse to open. That’s not destruction, Jack, that’s illumination.”

Jack: “Illumination? You think madness is enlightenment?”

Jeeny: “Not madness. Honesty. There’s a difference. Jackson’s pressure — that unbearable narrative tension Oyeyemi admired — it’s a reflection of being alive. Don’t you ever feel it? That sense that everything’s too much, that you might just... slip?”

Host: The sound of rain deepened, a constant percussion, as if the sky itself were listening. Jack’s fingers tightened on the cup, his reflection warping in the surface of the coffee.

Jack: “You’re talking about the edge, Jeeny. I’ve lived there. It’s not poetic. It’s cold. It’s a place where you start questioning what’s real — and what’s just fear dressed as meaning**.”

Jeeny: “And that’s where truth lives, Jack — right between fear and understanding. Why do you think Oyeyemi said she didn’t deserve to be named with Shirley Jackson? Because she feels that same awe, that same humility in front of something that still terrifies her. That’s not weakness — that’s reverence.”

Host: The thunder cracked, a deep sound that rattled the window. For a moment, their faces flashed in the light — Jack’s eyes steel-grey and haunted, Jeeny’s dark, soft, but burning with fervor.

Jack: “Reverence. You talk about fear like it’s holy.”

Jeeny: “Maybe it is. The ancient Greeks called it phobos — not just fear, but the presence of something greater than yourself. You can’t stand before that and stay the same.”

Jack: “And if you don’t come back?”

Jeeny: “Then maybe you were never really here to begin with.”

Host: The rain softened, falling now like a murmur. The café grew quieter, the waiter wiping down a counter, the radio whispering an old jazz tune that sounded like loneliness made melodic.

Jack: “You think stories save people. I think they just remind us how broken we are.”

Jeeny: “Maybe they do both. Maybe they break us so they can show us the shape of the wound. How else could we know where to heal?”

Host: Jack looked up, his eyes glinting with something between anger and realization. Jeeny’s hand hovered near his, the distance between them small but electric.

Jack: “You make it sound like pain is a kind of teacher.”

Jeeny: “Isn’t it? Shirley Jackson taught us that terror isn’t outside the house — it’s the echo in the walls of our own minds. And Oyeyemi… she understands that when we reread that terror, we’re not going insane — we’re meeting ourselves again.”

Host: A long silence. The clock ticked on. The rain became a soft drizzle, the world beyond the window now quiet, like the pause after a confession.

Jack: “Maybe that’s why people read horror. Not to escape, but to see what’s still alive inside.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. And to learn that fear doesn’t have to mean weakness — it can mean awareness. The haunting only wins when you stop listening.”

Host: The café lights flickered, one last pulse before stabilizing. The air felt different — lighter, though the storm still loomed beyond the walls.

Jack: “So maybe the madness Oyeyemi talked about — maybe that’s just what happens when truth gets too close.”

Jeeny: “Yes. When it whispers your name through the cracks in your walls, and you finally stop pretending you don’t hear it.”

Host: Jack smiled, faintly — the kind of smile that carries pain but also a strange relief. The steam from their cups had faded, but the warmth remained.

Jack: “I think I get it now. The best stories don’t just scare you… they wake you up.”

Jeeny: “And the best writers — the ones like Shirley Jackson — they don’t just write ghosts. They become them.”

Host: The rain stopped. Silence spread, clean and pure, like the world taking its first breath again. Through the window, the city lights shimmered, each one a tiny flame, trembling but alive.

Jeeny closed the book, her fingers lingering on its cover, her eyes soft, reflective.

Jack: “You know, Jeeny… maybe fear isn’t the opposite of comfort. Maybe it’s just the price of truly feeling something.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. And if a story can make you lose your mind for a while… maybe that’s the closest thing we have to truth.”

Host: Outside, the wet streets gleamed under the lamplight, and in that small café, two souls sat in the afterglow of a shared understanding. The camera pulled back, through the glass, through the rain, leaving behind the faint echo of words, and the soft hum of a world still haunted — not by ghosts, but by the beauty of its own depth.

And somewhere, in that silence, a voice whispered — not of fear, but of reverence:

"The haunting is never the house, Jack. It’s always us."