Sympathy For The Devil

There's a saying in Bethlehem, Free State. Not the one from the Bible, not the one with the donkey and the manger and the star that hung like God's own lantern over the desert.No, this Bethlehem's saying is whispered between cracked sandstone walls and under the breath of people who smile too tightly.> "We don't talk about the fields at night."That's it. No sermon, no explanation. Just a sentence as thin and sharp as barbed wire.They used to laugh at it - the newcomers, the city folk, the drunk teachers who came and went like tumbleweeds with degrees. But they stopped laughing when the wind changed. When they heard the footsteps crunching behind them but turned to find no one there. When their children started drawing things with no faces and whispering about "The Tall Man" in their sleep.