Welcome back to Love Bytes! It’s great to see you here again. You may (or may not) have noticed that I have been absent from social media during the past two months.

When I moved from the west coast to the east coast, it took a bit to become acclimated to Florida, and Hurricane Irma delayed that acclimation, to say the least. Nonetheless, I vow to help victimized youth no matter where I am, and worked to become eligible to assist youth in Florida. I have been volunteering and working hard with various youth for children’s services.

It’s a process that is not yet concluded. Rather, one that I cannot yet opine on except to say:

My process has been an interesting one. As you know, I not only write for but also advocate for abused boys (victims), no matter the age. The niche in which I offer services is a small one and, plainly stated, rare. Almost no one wants to care for victimized teen boys.

During the placement process, children’s services uses what they call a “matching tool” in an effort to place children in the most appropriate place(s) for care. As with any software, this tool is only as good as the input is and… I have ended up caring for a number of predatory boys over the past two months. It goes without saying that the information they have placed in their matching tool for my services is entirely wrong, and I now question whether I wish to continue my services. By way of example, the 15-year-old boy I currently attend sexually assaulted his mother two months ago and, when placed in care, assaulted a facility staff member and was removed from said facility. Is he a victim of sexual abuse? Purportedly so. Has he been treated psychologically for it? Other than medication, no. Herein lies the problem. Medication seems to be the only (non)treatment. I digress. In short, this sort of charge is not going to benefit from the types of services I offer. To wit, until the “matching tool” is corrected, I question whether I wish to continue rendering services… and shall now return to writing and visiting with all of you.

During the course, my friend Jammy, otherwise known as Max Rosalind, listened to my concerns for a very long two months, and fashioned a Fairy-like story. I laughed hysterically and thought you might enjoy it too.

“A Lively Debate”

Not far from here, though much farther than anyone can see, a small group of wee demi-fae sat about an evening fire not long after their supper. This was a special group for they were the demi-fae whose task and joy it was to keep and protect Cody. He is a grand fellow with eyes into many worlds, including Faery, and long ago it was decided that he should never walk alone again.

“So what is our Cody up to on the morrow?” said Ajax, a very large, round fae whose wings resembled a monarch butterfly but whose colors were exactly that of Heineken Beer bottles and labels.

“He must get up afore the sun and go have a talking to with a person at right strange sounding place, it be called the Dee’efsee’ess.” replied Cara, a bright turquoise lass who was proud to be descended from a gigantic moth humans thought to be long extinct.

“What up on earth is the Dee’efsee’ess?” asked Ajax, raising a huge eyebrow and taking a long, thoughtful drag on his milkweed pipe.

“Oh, it’s a place where they do the sortin’ of the wee ones but they don’t know how to sort proper. At least that is what Cody says most days.” Cara went on to explain a bit about the place.

When she got to the part about having to be the right sort oneself before the sorters would see you, Thiss jumped up and said, “Oh! I see it clear! When a person wants to go from where they be to a place they not be yet, they must pass the Dee’efsee’ess. It’s just like a bridge and the people in the Dee’efsee’ess be trolls!”

Ajax puffed thoughtfully on his pipe for a moment. “You could spake it true, ye could, Thiss. I see yer meaning, too. Their thing they call procedure be like a bridge and instead of having a gate at one end, they have them desks! Be the same thing, troll at each one, exacting a price. Yes, Thiss, I can see it clear.”

“But that may not be the half of it,” said Visteria, a long, sinewy fae who looked like she was a blossoming vine of the prettiest light blue flowers. Or maybe a he, since the many, petal-like wings were rather strategically placed so as not to bring a quick conclusion. Vis stretched forward and said, “The way Cara told it just now something be happening at the desks that is more than a troll can compass. Y’see,” she continued, languidly uncurling and curling in a different beautiful spiral pattern, “Cody says that the… Oh, what to call them. I suppose desksquatters, aye. Them desksquatters demand to know about ye, but they don’t ask ye any questions. They rely on shiny bits and likenesses made about ye by others ye may never have seen or even heard of before! Them ‘squats don’t want to hear ye say a thing about yeself but, rather, want to know what the strangers say about ye and whether those strangers put shiny marks on the shiny bits about ye. So… In me thinkin’ they must also be ravens! After the shiny things, always!”

“Ye spake true, too, Visteria,” said Ajax, puffing a bit faster on his pipe. “How can there be a troll-raven up on the earth and we not before see ’em down here? They sound like they be in the wrong place!”

“Maybe they were some kind of being that be banished from Faery,” said Viss. “Could be they were driven out long ago, perhaps even in the days of Good King Vharrash.”

At the mention of that name, all the demi-fae looked solemn and glanced down at the embers of the fire. And more than twice had a wet look about their eyes.

“Aye. Could be so, could be so,” said Ajax, letting his hand holding the pipe slowly descend to his right leg. “Good King Vharrash, He of Noble Sky and Endless Light, Protecter of All Faery and Fae, Consort to the Sun, and Keeper of the Winding Staff of Life, aye, he would have not a spark of a second for them desksquatters. I can see ‘im turning them to right angles to all other things so they would vanish, I can. But how would they have ended up topside? That’s a fair question as I make it.”

Visteria pondered this while tapping a long, elegant finger on her chin. “Maybe they got drawn to something that was akin to them? Wee Cody says them ‘squats are all over the place, they are, and not just at the De’efsee’ess. Says they are at the DeeEmVee, the Red Cross of Twits, and also inside what they call high schools—though, the way he spake of them they seem much more low than high. Y’spose them ’squats are putting them bridge-like desks up in any place they can? To set up the road block and bulk up the interference so no human can get anything done?”

Thiss, who had sat down once Ajax spoke, jumped up again and said, “Visteria! That is so, that be so! The ’squats like to block up things, stop people from going from where they be to places they not be yet! They hurl one of them desks right in the way! At the Dee-places, the crossed places, and those low schools where the old ones park the wee ones instead of taking proper care of them! Them ‘squats keep things from moving. Why, they’re like… like….”

“A fat cork up yer jacksie,” said Cara, matter of factly. “They squat and stop things up all the day long and probably into the night as Wee Cody tells it. They’re also like a right big gob-stopper, a huge pile of boogers to banjax ye nose. And like one of them things that makes ye pee-maker stop working. Somebody needs to do something about them!”

“Maybe we could get ‘em bladdered!” said Thiss excitedly.

“They probably already be drunk, or in much the same way, me dear Thiss,” said Ajax with a loud sigh. “The way these ’squats act and the way they talk, says Wee Cody, they must be half-way down a barrel before breakfast.”

“The way they talk? You mean they can do more than grunt?” asked Thiss with real wonder.

“Aye they can,” said Visteria.

“Oh they can talk! Or more truly they chuck up words that make no sense except to themselves, all those words being of a speech of no real use to anyone but a ‘squat. I once hid in one of Wee Cody’s braids and listened to a desksquat tell him what he needed to do first, second, and fourhundredteenth afore he could set about doing the barest kindness for the wee ones. It was a right raging river of bull shite it was. ’Twas afraid we might both drown in it, and that was just after the first few minutes. Y’know something else? Isn’t it peculiar that though the purpose of these boggy ‘squats is to block things up, they can still hold forth as if they were sitting on a geyser straight from what they call the Stygian.”

Ajax’s eyes shot up at that observation, and he tamped and relit his pipe, puffing up big pearly clouds of milky smoke. “Visteria, I think ye have come to the center of the ’squat, as it were. On one side they bog everything up, and on the other they can’t stop letting it flood out. Until now we still haven’t figured out what kind of creature they are, but I think I now know.”

They all leaned in toward Ajax, waiting with ‘bated breath for his next words.

He puffed up, and puffed out another large milky cloud from his pipe. “Fellow demi-fae,” he began gravely. “I think what these ’squats are, these creatures that can’t stop spewing from one end and trying to plug everything else up, well, I think they be Giant Behemoth Tapeworm Trolls.”

“Oooh!” the demi-fae exclaimed in unison.

“Aye. Giant Behemoth Tapeworm Trolls that good King Vharrash banished from Faery long ago. For never stoppin’ their spew and for blocking every river, channel, and bowel in the land. Instead of retiring to a border land and making their own place, they burrowed into the earth. Then they set about reproducing like gnats in a barn and working hard to bog up the affairs of humans. In doing so, they cursed themselves to be a forever spittin’ everything bad out and worrying the earth to stop everything else up to try to hide they own gluttony. They gorge, spew, and block, and all in one sittin’, they do.”

Thiss was beside himself, and nearly in front and behind himself, too, as he bounced up and down and twirled around with the thoughts spinning in his head. “So! What can be done about them ’squats, Ajax? How do the poor humans deal with thousands… No! Millions! Millions and millions of Giant Behemoth Tapeworm Trolls?”

“Tricksie ‘em!” yelled Cara.

“Run them to the sea!” squealed Visteria.

Thiss was about to loudly suggest an inspired plan involving forked lightning, the Grand Canyon, several thousand fry vats, and a particular British actress, when the fire suddenly blazed forth.

They all beheld the flaming face of one of their very favorite humans of any time or place, Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy from the world of Star Trek. “Dear friends,” he said in his kindest voice, “it was established long ago that the Bureaucratic Mentality, or what you now know manifested as Desksquatters, is the only constant in the universe. It’s futile to try and alter them. And it would be dangerous to do so since the whole of existence would begin to fade, without no constant to uphold it.”

Ajax was nearly speechless at this auspicious appearance but managed to say, “Dear Doctor! It is so good of you to come and provide us with such grand wisdom! We beseech ye, though! What are we do with these ’squats then? What can we do?”

McCoy’s image flared brighter and benevolently as he laughed in mirth. “Dear Ajax, the solution is already at hand. Partake well and often of the water of life and you will not be so bothered by the Desksquatters. It’s what life is made for, after all.” And with that he receded into the flames and the fire resumed its cheerful crackling and warmth.

Cara stared at Ajax and asked “Does he mean the Uisce Beatha?”

“Aye he does.”

“So, that’s it then?” asked Thiss.

“It is,” said Ajax.

After looking at each other for a moment, they took golden flasks from their belts. After uncorking them and raising them in salute to each other, they drank deeply and well. For a fae’s flask is always full and never runs dry. And while they let the water of life refresh them, and send them into merry forgetting, they also took a moment to reflect on the plight of humans… who always had to buy more water of life and who never seemed to be able to drink enough to make the desk squatters go away completely. And they also thought of name the humans had for it: whiskey. ©2018

Morals to the story:

Cody has been absent due to desksquats’ assignments.

The need for foster homes for youth is beyond vital. Children’s services must often maintain children in the office at night because they don’t have enough beds in facilities or homes in which to place them. If you are so inclined, please become a foster parent. Even if only to offer respite (relief) or emergency care as I do, you are desperately needed. But make sure you have an opportunity to review the information they place in their matching tool about you.

Whiskey does not make the desksquats’ go away.

See you back here next month on Saturday, February 17th!

About Cody Kennedy

Cody is an author who lives, most of the time, on the east coast of the United States. Cody also writes adult mystery thrillers, fantasy, science fiction, and romance as Aisling Mancy.

Raised on the mean streets and back lots of Hollywood by a Yoda-look-alike grandfather, Cody doesn’t conform, doesn’t fit in, is epic awkward, and lives to perfect a deep-seated oppositional defiance disorder. In a constant state of fascination with the trivial, Cody contemplates such weighty questions as If time and space are curved, then where do all the straight people come from? When not writing, Cody can be found taming waves on western shores, pondering the nutritional value of sunsets, appreciating the much-maligned dandelion, unhooking guide ropes from stanchions, and marveling at all things ordinary.

Cody’s Facebook, Twitter @CodyKAuthor, Pinterest, Tumblr, Google+, Ello,
Goodreads, Medium, Booklikes, and read my free serial story, Fairy.

Find Ash on blog, Twitter @AislingMancy, Facebook, Google+, Goodreads, Booklikes,
Dreamspinner Press Author Page, and Amazon
and Ash does respond to emails because, after all, it is all about you, the reader.

Sleight of Heart and Heartifact are available in French!

Pssst. Click on the captioned title of each book to read the first chapter!