A gap in the fence

“If you walk past that gap in the fence, a monster will jump out and get you.”
You’ll recognize this statement if you had older cousins. Or maybe you were the older cousin, and this type of pronouncement was a standard in your “it’s dark outside and we’re bored” repertoire.
If you didn’t have cousins, you had neighborhood friends. The object of your fear may have been a scary abandoned house at the end of the block, or a dark, overgrown section in the tree row at the back of your property, or a lean-to shed at your farm.
Whatever it was, it represented deathly peril. And the one sure test of courage? Walking past it.  
At first you resisted. “If you walk past that gap in the fence, a monster will jump out and get you.”
“Will not.—Will too!—Will not.” This went on for awhile, until finally, you worked up your courage and said, “Will not, and I’ll prove it!” You turned to face your foe, the fabled Gap in the Fence. Game on.
If you were lucky enough to have a pretty big group of cousins, the really little ones that were younger than you now gasped, then held their breath as you began walking.
You crept along the buckled sidewalk, split by ancient tree roots in centuries past. Your light-up tennis shoes blinked off and on in the dim glow from the streetlight at the corner. Your heart pounded as you moved ever closer to a real-life encounter with a monster, whatever that meant to you at age seven.
A little cousin behind you sent a stage-whisper into the dark: “Don’t do it!” You looked back, shook your head no and waved off the warning. You’d gone too far. You had to walk past it now, for your honor.
The Gap in the Fence appeared larger as you neared it. Then, as you reached the first broken board, your fear gave way to a burst of adrenaline and you raced past that monster at Mach 3 like the banshees were on your heels.
Behind you, everyone began screaming like Cera, the “threehorn” dinosaur from “Land Before Time.” In a fit of courage-by-proxy, they all raced past the Gap in the Fence too, shrieking even louder than before, flailing their arms and running into one another as they ran.
When they joined you on the other side and you all reached whatever spot meant safety—maybe the streetlight, maybe the side of the garage—you crouched down together, panting wildly from all the excitement.
“We did it!” you agreed, slapping hands and congratulating one another like old campaigners. Whichever older cousin had issued the monster warning was forced to agree. “You did it. You ran so fast, that monster couldn’t get you.” Dramatic pause. “But you’d never make it back again.”
And so the game continued.
Inside, the grownups may have noticed your sporadic screaming. They may have paused for a moment to decide if it was serious, then passed it off. Didn’t sound like anyone was hurt. They casually went back to their visiting. They didn’t know you were risking your life and reputation to prove you weren’t afraid of a monster. Or maybe they did. After all, making yourself scream is a time-honored game of youth, centuries old, like those tree roots under the sidewalk. They may have smiled and recognized it for what it was. The joy of childhood.
We’re all looking for something to take our breath away, to lure us off on a daring adventure, to strike us with awe, to challenge our courage. As we get older, we may find those moments at the base of the Tetons, or at the edge of the surf on a windy day at the beach. We may find them when we tally the monthly bills.
In childhood, we find them with our comrades and cousins, running past a Gap in the Fence. Timeless