Episode #1: A weird visitor #1: Arrival

May,13 2025

My great-grandfather was a rancher. He owned a ranch in rural Texas, and when his neighbor wanted to retire when his sons had moved to the city, my ancestor bought his ranch.

My grandfather not only inherited both ranches, but also bought the other neighbors when he retired. Same generation as the first one, but a little younger, same problem.

My father, and our back neighbors, several miles behind us, were the only two ranchers in the area, with our neighbor having the largest ranch.

I grew up on my family's ranch, but like our neighbors, didn't pursue the family tradition. I left for the city (Austin), at the same time as Tom, the only son to our neighbor.

Both my father, now divorced from my mother, who remarried in the city (Dallas), and soon after, the other neighbor also got divorced, leaving only the two men in the area, helping each other, drinking together.

What no one knew, was that they changed their wills to consolidate both multi-property ranches into a single mega ranch. It made sense, both men loved their ranch, and they helped each other with their cattle and crops.

What they didn't plan, was the early demise of our neighbors, followed the year later with a heart attack from my father. Now, to clarify things, the heart attack wasn't fatal, but having a mild heart attack while stranded in the middle of a ranch, hundreds of miles from civilization, that, was fatal.

He called for an ambulance, it took it 2 hours to arrive, by which time he was gone. He did call me. I also rushed, but I was even further. We talked, as his breath was leaving him.

I promised not to sell the super ranch. I promised no to break it apart. I wouldn't promise to take care of it on my own, but I would move to it.

It certainly made enough money on its own to replace my corporate job.

But I would need help. And help, costs money, and money paid, would cost me profit.

There is a reason why giant corporations own most farms, they know how to nickel and dime every aspect of the ranch, I didn't.

My wife was a lot less thrilled. She had a job she could do remote, in the publishing industry. She is a reader. I know, it's sounds like a hobby, but it's a job. She reads submitted manuscripts and suggests which one to publish.

It's her who had the idea. She is the idea person between us, and I am the boots on the ground person.

We had joined a non-landed naturist club in Austin. Being nude in the pool or playing volleyball with other nude people is refreshing, liberating. We later vacationed at a naturist resort, and the one thing I missed, was the open fields. The idea that you could explore the land.

All of them would have a tall fence around the property, keeping you in.

When we visited the ranch, my wife found, in a small valley between my father's original ranch and one of our neighbor's purchased land, a real paradise on Earth.

A warm lake surrounded by a small, relatively beautiful flat meadow. It was huge, but for a rancher, wasted space.

On top of it, not far from there, was the power line connecting our ranch to our neighbors.

The idea of founding a naturist village was hers, and soon enough, adverts for so-founders were left online.

We could need people to handle the cattle, to build the houses, to handle the crops, and in exchange for their work, they would receive a plot of land. Unofficially, just a few rent for life.

There wasn't a lot of interest, but there was enough to get started. Enough to let my wife and I focus on building the resort, on making a web presence, on getting both Internet and power to the future town and slowly, we were getting somewhere.

After 3 years, we had 30 residents, after 5 years, 80. We were over 120 when we opened our first school. 150 when we got our official post office, and soon after, an unofficial police officer who had retired from the NYPD.

To my surprise, people didn't want me as Mayor, they wanted my wife. I was fine with that. She truly began flourishing as a mayor, and delivered our two daughters, non-identical twins, in her first year in office.

She got a grocery store and a pharmacy in town, which wasn't easy, especially since we weren't officially a town, but still, she did it.

I got a new title, one given to me by Jake, the head cattleman. He called me "Gov'ner", and soon enough, everyone did.

My wife oversaw the meadow, but I was responsible for the rest of the ranch, which people exploited as well!

Lucy, got a tractor, and would find rocks on the ranch she could carve into statues. Not every rock, those she could use, but don't ask me which, I know nothing about rocks.

Gregor would find rabbits, and put them in a habitat where he would breed them for food. He also took care of rattlesnakes which he gave to his wife, who would make leather from their skin.

We even had some prospectors who found some dolomite and limestone, which we exploited for some revenues.

I won't hide it, we built an economy.

We were a few of us around a campfire, including my wife, Lucy, her husband, and Jake and his wife. We were grilling s'mores when a massive meteorite dropped not far from the town.

Lucy, our police officer, woken up from his sleep, Jake and I mounted her tractor, and went in the direction of where she thought it landed. Jake had a different idea, but she was driving. I thought it was weird we didn't hear an explosion, but Lucy's husband was yelling that he should be coming too, and Lucy was arguing he would be useless.

Lucy was excited because meteors have iron and other minerals in them.

When we got to the place in question, however, we discovered not a meteor, but a weird metallic box, landed on six feet, and still glowing red. We could feel the heat from it, but we would also hear a whizzing sound which displaced air around.

We kept our distance, and our police officer regretted not bringing his gun.

Eventually, the heat dissipated, and a sort of panel lowered. From it, a weird centaur like creature emerged.

When I say centaur like, I mean that it was walking on 4 legs, like a horse, but in front of it was what looked a little like a torso with two "arms" with 3 segments, not two, as if they had 2 elbows, and 3 fingers, not 5. It has a purple skin.

Its head was bald, and featured 3 unnaturally large eyes unlike any we had ever seen. A massive pupil in the center, no iris, and the "white" is blue, instead of white. Worse, the pupil appears golden.

The creature lacked a nose, as the 3rd eye was in its place, in the center, with both eyes more on the side of the head.

Under that eye, is a large mouth without lips. It is also devoid of clothes

Behind it, a second one, with a lighter color, arrives.

"Ock", it says, lifting it's left arm.

"Hi", I said, lifting my right arm.

"Hi", it repeated, lifting it's right arm.

"Ock", I said, confused.

"Ock", he says, with a sort of weird tone which I associated as laughing.

The two began talking in a weird K centered language, with a lot of licks. The first one, went on the ground, and let the second one get closer to me.

I touched my heart. "Luke"

The first one laughed. Touched itself and says "Uke"

I repeated "Luke"

And the second one touched itself and said "Kukey",, and then, the first one and said "Uke", and then, pointed me and said "Luke"

I laughed. And pointed to the second one. "Kukey", and the first one "Uke", and me, "Luke", and then, nodded.

They both looked at me, puzzled.

I pointed at me. "Luke", and nodded. And then, pointed at me, "Kukey" and shook.

The second one says "oooo". And touched themselves "Luke", and shook and then me, "Luke" and nodded.

So, we met aliens, and they could learn how to communicate! How exciting!