Sometimes the monsters you fear are just sprinklers.

And you’re standing there in the dark, clutching a fist full of rocks you’ve scooped from underneath your feet; you’re not wanting to get close enough to whatever it is that’s terrifying you to actually throw them, but at least you’re armed now, and if not dangerous, well–you’re no longer just an innocuous girl. You’re not waiting to be a victim, legs and arms exposed because you were running and wearing shorts and a tank top and you never did expect to be so scared and vulnerable.

Not tonight, anyway.

But then your brother laughs just a little. “It’s just the sprinklers going off!” he says. And you laugh at yourself too and you let go of those rocks and they hit the ground with a thud, respectively, until you’re no longer feeling so weighed down by the weapons you clutched while you were fearing the worst.

Sprinklers, that’s what they were.

And now when you pass those sprinklers, you laugh a little inside your head. And you remember that what you feared so badly was something that couldn’t hurt you, after all.

So you don’t need to walk around with rocks in your hand; you don’t need to run away so fast; you don’t need to fear that every sound you hear is the worst.

Because sometimes the monsters you fear really are just sprinklers.