They're more afraid of you than you are of them...

When I was in second grade I fell off a playground slide and landed knees first onto the razor sharp woodchips below. I paused, looked down at my bleeding knees, and promptly launched into a series of tortured wails and sniffles as I limped over to my teacher. This woman, who I'm sure was a perfectly nice and caring lady, had somehow managed to make me angry in the early part of my second grade tenure so I held for her a white-hot, unadulterated, and rather satisfying loathing that has still never been mitigated after all these years. She knew this, and I think because of it she had ceased to be nice and caring in return, so when I approached her to ask for nurses and Band-Aids, she rolled her eyes toward another teacher and made some comment about me being "seven going on two" and how I just needed to get over a little blood. I felt the blood that wasn't currently dripping out of the wound on my knee boil a little and I slunk off toward the monkey bar, plotting some sort of grand scheme to avenge my bruised feelings.

The tears weren't so much for the blood or the pain, but more a response to falling from ten feet above the ground and thinking "This just happened to me!" It was shock, and nothing more, but I wanted it acknowledged that I could've been brain damaged, in a head to toe body cast, or dead. Someone needed to appreciate it. But in that instance, no one did. I decided after that point I was going to become one of those toughass kids who never got scared or reacted to anything, so I developed a fairly intense plan for dealing with pain, surprises, and things that scared me. I was hardcore about forcing myself to walk the entire length of the burning hot concrete around the perimeter of our city pool rather than dipping my toes in the water periodically like all the other kids. I would hold bugs in shaking hands, letting them skitter over my palms and up my arms until I could rationalize that their spiny antennae and glistening eyes were nothing to be alarmed about, and they were every bit as scared of my own huge eyes and probing fingers. So when I fell off some sort of playground equipment the following year, I looked down at my knees again and noted with clinical detachment that this time the injury was WAY worse and that rocks were even stuck in my skin and everything, but that it didn't matter as I brushed off my shorts, walked calmly to my teacher, and asked for a nurse pass. I mentally patted myself on the back when I heard another third grade teacher remark, "Did you see those knees? That girl is TOUGH!" It was awesome not being scared of anything.

There are, though, a few things I still can't quite get over. Cockroaches, for one. Nuclear war. The idea of having my house burglarized while I'm in it again. And no matter how many times I use my armchair cognitive behavioral therapy, I still can't quite get over being afraid of the dark. I once sat on the floor of my garage for fifteen minutes to prove to myself that there was absolutely no one waiting for me in the water heater closet, but even with the irrefutable evidence in the back of my mind I still make a mad dash for my door as soon as the lights go out in my car.

So today, when I stepped into the deserted hallways of the school where I work, the familiar rush of quiet terror started up the back of my knees and settled firmly in the base of my spine. I knew the building was kind of dark, but I was unprepared for just how dark it could really get when no one else was in it. I had to walk down two windowless corridors to make it to my classroom, and every sound, every strange light made me more and more frightened as I went deeper into the center of the school. The Xerox copiers whirring on hibernation mode turned into twin sentinels guarding the gate of a pitch-black institutional labryinth, air rattling through their lungs as they watched me with glowing green eyes. I saw outlines of things lying on the floor...THINGS. I knew, had I possessed the ability to turn on the overhead lights that the THINGS would just be the usual assortment of projects and posters and wall art that lose their adhesiveness and fall off over the course of the weekend, but I held my breath as I picked my way through them and prayed none of them would touch my foot. I would absolutely lose my shit if anything touched my foot. Please don't touch my foot.

I made it safely to my classroom, turned on every light I had, blared Public Radio from my computer, hoping that Garrison Keillor's dulcet tones would keep evil at bay, and finished with my work as quickly as possible. I had to take two rather large plastic bags home with me, so I grabbed one in each hand and started back down the hallways to my car. Going out was almost worse than coming in because my eyes were completely unaccustomed to the darkness this time, and the sun had set a little lower. The garbage bags were too heavy to sling over my shoulders so I drug them as fast as I could through the school in kind of a stop-start cadence. I kept my eyes straight ahead on the main doorway and breathed a gigantic sigh of relief when I saw a collection of neighborhood kids gathered by the entrance of the school. Neighborhood kids meant no hidden axe murderer in my mind. People don't die eight feet away from other people, except in John Carpenter movies. The rational thought process kicked back in, and I headed toward the doorway proud of myself for leaving behind my silly phobia about the dark.

So it was kind of unexpected when one of the kids looked in my direction, shouted something and motioned for all the other kids to run off with him. I suppose the sight of a person silhouetted by the sun in a supposedly empty building, lurching through the hallway and dragging two rather large plastic bags might be kind of a frightening sight if you weren't expecting it. Even if the serial killer with the two victims clutched in her hands was really just an elementary music teacher with lots of tie-dyed t-shirts and her own fear of the unknown to contend with.

Perspective is a funny thing sometime.