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Commentary on “Bluebird”

David H Weinberger

“Bluebird” as it exists today is very different from the first iteration. In both versions I was exploring my interest in early childhood bullying and the effects, both short- and long-term, on the victim. In the first rendition Ms. Taylor was much more vindictive and cruel to her passengers. The character is based on an actual bus driver I had in grade school. I remember her as mean and angry, abusive to almost everyone, and never wearing a smile. One of her favorite abusive behaviors was assigning nicknames to the students in her care. She called me Davidia because I had very long hair at the time and I guess she felt the length of my hair was quite inappropriate for the young boy I was. She made me feel quite small and inconsequential, if not totally useless. She made me hate climbing on the bus each morning. Luckily I did not see myself as singled out by her because she did similar things with others. No idea how she kept her job as a bus driver for young students. Which is why the early version of Bluebird got so many rejections: editors felt the abuse I wrote about was unbelievable, that a driver would never be allowed to keep her job with the described type of behavior. But I know that the abuse went on for years and she never changed her attitude, never lost her job. I’m pleased with the newest version of the story but still feel a kinship with the original.

I rewrote the story because I was interested in the overall theme and I felt that the core of the story was good. In reworking the current version of Bluebird, I tried to imagine what could have happened in Ms. Taylor’s life to cause her to be so abusive to her charges. Though I was bullied extensively in my youth I was fortunate to learn alternative ways of dealing with my pain and responding to cruelty. But I came to realize that that is not the same for every bullying victim: many respond by becoming bullies themselves or closing themselves off to others. Ms. Taylor is an example. I never saw any signs of redemption in my real Ms. Taylor but want to believe that people who suffer the violence of others can find a way out of their downward spiral and that is what I imagined for my fictional Ms. Taylor.

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David H Weinberger is an American author writing in Berlin, Germany. His stories have appeared in The Write Launch, The Normal School, The Ravens Perch, Gravel, and elsewhere. He holds a Master’s Degree in Early Childhood Education and taught kindergarten for eight years in Salt Lake City, Utah. Visit davidhweinberger.com to read more of his stories.

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