The Invasion of Tork

By Claire Davis and Al Stewart

A story from Boughs of Evergreen: A Holiday Anthology

THE INVASION OF TORK
by CLAIRE DAVIS and AL STEWART

Adam is cool, intelligent and drop-dead gorgeous - all the guys tell him so! When he is forced to start voluntary work at the local homeless shelter, all he worries about is keeping the clients well away from him and finishing the placement as soon as possible. Until he meets Tork.

Tork is clever and funny. He makes origami models and reads Dickens. Tork has green hair and makes Adam's heart race with longing. But Tork is homeless and not at all impressed with Adam's attitude.

Can Adam see past his fear and arrogance? Can Tork give Adam a chance?
Can two such different men turn the world upside down and find out what really matters? Read to find out their story.

Content Warning: the story includes reference to and description of self-harming.

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ABOUT BOUGHS OF EVERGREEN

Boughs of Evergreen is a two-volume collection of short stories celebrating the holiday season in all its diversity. Penned by authors from the UK, the USA, Scandinavia and Eastern Europe, these are tales of the young and the not-so-young from many different walks of life.

Themes of family, friendship and romance take readers on a journey through some of the major holidays, both past and present, including Thanksgiving, Advent, St. Lucia Day, Hanukkah, Saturnalia, Winter Solstice, Yule, Christmas and New Year. In each we find at the very least hope, and often love, peace and happiness.

Proceeds from sales of this anthology will be donated to The Trevor Project. The Trevor Project is the leading national organization [USA] providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) young people ages 13-24.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Beaten Track Publishing
• Release date: Dec 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781909192959

Claire Davis

Claire Davis is the author of Season of the Snake and Winter Range, which won the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award for Best First Novel and the Mountains and Plains Booksellers Award for Best Novel. Her stories have appeared in The Southern Review, The Gettysburg Review, and Ploughshares, been read on National Public Radio's Selected Shorts program, and been selected for the Best American Short Stories and Pushcart Price anthologies. She lives in Lewiston, Idaho.

Book preview

Paper Boats

by Rabindranath Tagore

Day by day I float my paper boats one by one down the running stream.

In big black letters I write my name on them and the name of the village where I live.

I hope that someone in some strange land will find them and know who I am.

I load my little boats with shiuli flower from our garden, and hope that these blooms of the dawn will be carried safely to land in the night.

I launch my paper boats and look up into the sky and see the little clouds setting their white bulging sails.

I know not what playmate of mine in the sky sends them down the air to race with my boats!

When night comes I bury my face in my arms and dream that my paper boats float on and on under the midnight stars.

The fairies of sleep are sailing in them, and the lading is their baskets full of dreams.

—Rabindranath Tagore, 1913

The Crescent Moon

(Project Gutenberg)

* * * * *

My home is just a small, mean space, down at the bottom of the block of flats under the stairs. In the corner of that dank place, there is a dark nasty triangle, where I can hide from the frights that haunt the streets at night. There is a smell of urine and old fish and chip wrappers and even the air tastes acrid and stale. It isn’t quite the bowels of the Earth, and certainly I have seen worse, but the lingering sense of desertion and failure make me feel weak and ill. It is a place where you could give up. Perhaps this is why I keep returning here.

I once tried to leave some belongings here so I didn’t have to carry them about with me always, but someone spotted the bag and threw it away. I later found it—just some clothes and books—in the skip outside. My books—there with the rubbish—scattered and useless and wet and…The thundering hooves of anger and despair had overcome me then, and for a while I raged and shouted and spat.

But what was the point?

So now I always carry my backpack with me. I do not have much because I am trying to get to the bottom of the mankind pile and give up all material possessions.

Sometimes I leave a paper boat or bird that I have made. If I don’t make it back to the towers, then at least a small part of me will still be here. My fingerprints will be on it as proof that I existed.

This night I am lucky—I have some cardboard to sit on and the blanket from the skip to wrap around me. These days this is as good as it gets. If I could only lie down perhaps I could get comfortable and rest my aching back, but the rules do not allow it.

Rule: no lying down.

Although the walls are concrete and grey, I have to feel that they are friendly and protective. They keep an eye out for me and have the power to repel invaders. I see this statement as being in red and underlined so it stands out. I have to believe this because there is nothing else. Even I have to believe in something. The only time this was not true was when I broke the rules and lay down, and then I only had myself to blame. What happened was my fault and I needed to be punished. I wanted it and I welcomed the pain like an old friend. I still do. Every time I release the pain some of the shame leaves me, if only for a while.

I try to not want. I try.

It is never really silent or peaceful down here, underneath the hundreds of families and televisions and lives. I can feel rather than hear them—odd vibrations in the walls and rumblings down the stairs which make me start and freeze, listening for danger. On the bad nights the noises come much closer—drunken men pissing, or packs of kids braying and jeering.

On those nights, I am frozen with indecision; to run and risk being chased, or huddle deeper and trust that the walls will protect me. When they are gone I am relieved but alone, more alone than ever. But even a beating means that I am worth someone’s hatred. It means I must still be alive. So far, in this place, I have gone undetected but I know this does not mean that I am safe. I start to doze, unable to fight the pull of sleep and forgetfulness and more.

There is a half world between sleep and consciousness where creatures that are otherwise undetected slip through. Crafty creatures who tease with memories and yearnings from years ago, like dreams residing in the bones and the weighty sorrows of a body.

I resent her for doing this to me but at the same time I try to take comfort in that mother’s voice wavering at me through the years and trials since I have seen her. Mum. Mummy. Or Lin, if I was feeling really cheeky. Suddenly, another memory bangs on my mind, of him, and I have to catch my breath and hold still to preserve the visit. The warm smell of his neck, I will never forget that smell. I miss you, I whisper, I still miss you. It’s just little words floating on some breath, holding everything I have lost inside a bubble of air.

My head finally rests on my knees as my arms slide down. Sleep takes me despite the rules, because I am ultimately weak.

* * * * *

If I can just get through the night without coughing it will be okay. I can