Beneath the Burlap: The Demon in the Field

Beneath the Burlap: The Demon in the Field

The field had always smelled like rain that forgot to fall, a memory of thunder stored in the furrows. I returned at dusk, boots sinking into soil that remembered my footprints as if the land could hold a grudge. The scarecrow stood where the hedgerows thinned; burlap flapped like a tired mouth, and the eyes stitched into its face seemed to fix on me with a patient, terrible purpose.

My grandmother spoke of omens, of a farm's heartbeat drawn out by neglect. She had not tended this land in years, but the scarecrow remained—an old sentinel with its own hunger. When the sun slipped behind the silo, the burlap loosened as if exhaling. A gust carried a whisper: you should not have come back. I told myself it was the wind, until the straw feet shuffled, ever so slightly, as if the field itself breathed through the stitches.

“When the burlap rustles and the corn goes quiet, the field remembers you,” a voice seemed to murmur, not from the scarecrow’s mouth but from the furrow’s dark seam. “Stay long enough, and you’ll learn what you are made of.”

I circled the figure, the way one circles a cliff edge, slowly, with a gloved hand raised to shield the eyes from the dusk. The scarecrow did not move; nothing in this place ever moved—until it did. The eyeholes, dark as well water, reflected not my face but a memory of a man who walked away with more than his share of secrets. The burlap yielded to pressure, not with a creak but with a sigh, as though something heavy and patient parted the night with care.

• The air grows thick with the scent of rain and old grain, a perfume that clings to the throat.
• The shadows stitch themselves tighter whenever you blink, and you blink anyway, hoping for daylight you know will not come.
• A whisper travels along the cornrows, naming you by a name you forgot you owned.
• The scarecrow’s mouth never opens, yet you hear a chorus of carved wind speaking through the frayed seams.

When the horizon finally brightened with something like dawn, I realized the field had claimed a new memory: mine. The burlap—once a simple shell for protection—now felt like a tether, a thread tying me to the soil, to the demon who waited beneath the surface of every furrow. I stepped back, not out of fear but out of a stubborn, resigned respect for the field’s fevered patience. Some doors, once opened by need or guilt, refuse to close. And some demons, we discover, are not interested in escape but in keeping us company until the harvest ends.