Indianna Jones – liberator from the white slave trade

We endure an existence of high anxiety, a peak in the bell curve as we await the trough that follows. It’s always like that around here, crashing waves before a period of calm.

I’d like to blame those people, but it’s not really their fault. How were they to know? It was a perfectly harmless sign stuck to the back of their car. They didn’t know that he reads everything and particularly favours orange signs. It was innocent enough ‘family sale here,’ and an arrow pointing towards their home. It just came at a bad moment, an anxious moment when he’s more vulnerable to triggers and spin off.


So far the social stories are a failure but it’s a work in progress.


It’s a little embarrassing right now, but my Rhino hide serves me well. It’s only been the last few days.

I go to school to collect them.

My youngest son bursts from the classroom to prostrate himself at my feet, face covered with the palm of his hands to yell at 50 decibels “don’t sell me Mom. Pleazzzz don’t sell me.”



Yes, it’s well and truly stuck, even though the original sign didn’t specify which member of the family would be sold.

I prompt him of course, because it helps him remember. His face is in the dirt and his eyes are covered, but his ears are exposed, so I hum the first few notes like a secret code. I don’t understand the magic, I only know it works. Maybe it’s like the marching songs of soldiers entering battle, energizing? He explodes back onto his feet to a rousing chant, the theme tune from Indianna Jones, his personal salvation. A non lethal weapon from torment. He spins off in a revelry, arms wide, head back to salute his freedom in song. It’s like the Hallelujah Chorus that lifts the spirit and crushes the psychological deamons.

Even little people get to be superheroes sometimes.