Whistle Blower

Let’s stir the cauldron a bit…

Once upon a chalk-lined field etched like a sigil into the earth, good and evil agreed to meet—not to negotiate, but to play.

They arrived cloaked as teams, wearing colors chosen long ago in rooms lit by candle smoke. Good came bearing intention, believing rules were spells that worked only if spoken aloud and honored. Evil came smiling, fluent in loopholes, convinced every spell could be bent if whispered sideways.

Between them rested the football.

Not leather—never leather—but a talisman. The truth. Oval and unruly, refusing straight lines, humming faintly when touched by dishonest hands. It could not be destroyed, only carried, dropped, or hidden for a time. Many sought it. Few could hold it without being changed.

The field itself watched.

Play began, and bodies moved like pieces in a living ritual. Truth was passed, intercepted, disguised as strategy. Good tried to move it forward in the open, trusting daylight magic. Evil preferred pileups and shadows, where truth could be smothered and claimed without being seen.

Above it all, the crowd chanted, unknowingly feeding the spell. Crowds always do. Noise is power, whether it understands itself or not.

And then—there was the referee.

Neither team claimed her. This was her curse and her power. She wore the old colors: black and white, night and bone. Around her neck hung the whistle, forged not of metal but of truth. When it sounded, time itself obeyed. Muscles froze. Lies stalled mid-breath. The air grew thick with consequence. Excuses lost their rhythm.

The referee was the whistleblower—the witch in the circle.

She did not decide who was good or evil. She did not move the football forward. She simply stopped the game long enough for everyone to see what had just happened.

This made her dangerous.

Both teams hated her when she was honest. Both needed her when chaos grew too loud. Evil mocked her. Good begged her. The crowd booed her until the moment they needed the game to make sense again.

In the end, the score was never the point. Games end. Truth doesn’t. It changes hands, it gets fumbled, it’s disputed, it’s reviewed—but it remains stubbornly on the field.

And somewhere, finger hovering near the whistle, stands the one who knows:

Sometimes the bravest act isn’t scoring. It’s stopping time.

Erin Tulloch

Whistler Blower