The small autistic child with anxiety larger than himself cowered in the corner of his bedroom. Hands held tightly over his ears, he tried to curb the over stimulus of the day's sounds. Reverberating inside his head, he tried to visualize extracting the sounds and funneling them into the special soundproof container his Mum gave him. It wasn't working. The sounds were getting louder and they were banging on his skull.

He rocked. Eyes shut, ears covered, he rocked to provide relief. His head, knocking against the steel frame of his bed, failed to feel any hurt because the sounds were louder than hurt. Louder and meaner, and they always called his tummy to join them. Once his tummy joined in, any chance of peaceful sleep was over. Head and tummy created a whirlpool of anxiety and fear.

His Mum came in. Answering the sign of his knocking head, she sat beside him and calmly storied a new strategy of coping.

"Imagine the sounds are a dog. The dog does not belong in your head. It belongs on a leash. Sometimes you will need to keep Sound close to you, sometimes Sound will need to sleep on the back veranda. If Sound stays in here, he will keep you awake with his snarling and he'll fight you for the most comfortable part of your bed. Put Sound on the leash and take him outside. I will help you."

It worked! Chained up and put to bed, outside, Sound settled nicely. If Sound cried, nobody heard him that night. While the boy child rather liked Sound at times, the Mum hated him. He was the most anxiously savage dog she had ever had the misfortune to meet. As far as she was concerned, Sound should experience the green dream or purple peril of permanent sleep.

The morning following Sound's veranda banishing, boy child was the first awake in the household. He made himself a cup of tea and patiently awaited his mother's sleepy entrance. He sat, silent and fixated, in the middle of the hallway, right in front of his mother's closed door. The moment the door opened, he was ready to show his mum how he had found a new occupation for his advancing adulthood. He was a dog obedience instructor because he had already tamed anxious Sound.

Toilet flush. She's awake, he thought. En-suite door open, next she'll come out into the hallway to get a cup of coffee to take back to bed. Yes! Now it was his chance, his time to help her. He had to tell her, now, before he forgot.

The sound that met the still sleepy mother was dreadful. It was full on, incessant and compulsive.

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