As the rest of the world loudly and passionately celebrated the oncoming of the New Year, the first trip across the sun in the history of humanity without any trace of the male sex, a new history where women ruled and ruled exclusively, an unexpected and unannounced spacecraft gently landed upon a dark, quiet field of hills just above a small town in Illinois. The spacecraft was flying saucer shaped, like in The Day The Earth Stood Still. Cliched perhaps, but that's the shape of the spaceship, and you'd better get used to it. Goddamn spoiled readers, can't even appreciate a story without commenting on the shape of an alien spaceship. They wouldn't complain about a human car driving a station wag...oh, yes, where was I....A soft hiss indicated that the sublight engines had voluntarily stopped running, indicating that someone intelligent was commanding the ship and had deliberately decided to park here. Without warning, a gangway erupted from the perfectly sleek chrome space vehicle. From the right side of the entrance way, a pair of heavy black boots suddenly walked into frame and faced front. The camera raised its view ever so gradually to reveal the mysterious stranger, our next protagonist. Our next sight is a pair of tan cargo pants encasing strong, muscular legs. A little bit higher, and we see the visage of a green leather jacket, a red t-shirt, and a pair of dangling arms, suggesting somebody who is a bit impatient and perhaps a tad bit childish. A little bit higher, and we see a man's face of about thirty years of age, smiling like a little boy.
"I'm home!” loudly announced Clay Byrne, to his town of Buckingham, population just about three-hundred. Running down the gangway, Clay breathed in Terran air for the first time in twenty years. It made him a little bit drunk, as he was used to breathing the thinner artificially controlled atmosphere of planets across the galaxy ruled by the alien Bvro'om. He raised his arms and danced around the field of long grass.
"G'roooink! Come out! The atmosphere is just fine!"
A blue tentacled alien from a faraway planet in the Andromeda Galaxy slithered to the front entrance, down the ramp, a trail of slime following, and quietly joined the junior Earthman, gazing upon the rural town of Clay's birth. He put a tentacle across the young man's shoulder.
**
Magic was widely understood and studied to almost an exact science by the various advanced forms of life across the universe. Not only were we not alone, but even our deepest occult secrets were but child's play to a minor of G'roooink's species, who was by his people's standards an ordinary blue collar joe, but was the Terran equivalent of a master sorcerer.
"Remember everything I taught you Clay, and take a care to be discreet. Don't cause too much of a scene" explained the alien as if he were a father to the abducted Earth-boy. "If you want to find what happened to your Mother and Father when the Great Change happened, you'll have to be careful not to cause attention."
Clay smiled and looked at his mentor. “I'm gonna miss your little Obi-Wan Kenobi lessons, G.”
G'roooink let go of Clay, who looked at him with concern. Or at least as much concern as he could show with solid black eyes.
“I'm afraid that I may have gone too easy on you. Left you unprepared for adult life.”
Clay ignored the awkward conversation G'roooink was starting. He had lived a life that few people ever dreamed of- exploring the galaxy and getting in awesome adventures. He was practically a superhero!
"I think I'll be fine. I have to dip my toe in the water eventually! So what do you think the Great Change could be? Do you think some evil guy Cronenberg'd the entire human race? Turned everybody into monsters?”
“Who knows? I wouldn't doubt it.”
“Well, I'm really worried. I hope I won't have to kill anybody.”
News that the people of Earth had undergone a dramatic magical transformation had spread all throughout galactic society in the weeks since Greta and Jean had made their fateful wish, but the aliens who didn't live within flying distance of the third rock from the sun honestly didn't care that much. Earth was a backwater planet, with a primitive species that wouldn't ascend to a Type II civilization for centuries- if they didn't destroy each other first with nuclear weaponry or climate change. When Clay had heard of the news though, while dining in a Saquarian restaurant while macking on a very hot Rigellian chick, he immediately backed away from his latest girlfriend/conquest and immediately began hauling ass back to his planet of origin.
G'roooink raised his tentacles, casting a spell of protection over his young ward. If you looked closely, a transparent field now covered Clay's entire body, but it could only be noticed by those who were familiar with the dark arts. Whatever it was that had changed everyone on the entire planet Earth, it would not effect Clay.
“I'm sure your loved ones will be fine” explained the alien, traveling back into his ship. He gave one last look to Clay, a look of sympathy, before lifting the gangway back into it's upright position, and turned on the cloaking device. He promised Clay that he would hibernate for one week while his protege got reacquainted with his sires.
Clay gave the ship that had gotten him out of so many jams one last look, and began descending the hills of Buckingham until he reached his childhood home.
**
Cassandra Byrne, who was 55, was Clay's mother. She was currently on her living room couch making love to her wife, Meredith, who was 60. Meredith used to be Clay's father, Merle. Both were buxom, both wouldn't look out of place on the set of Baywatch, and both were watching the New Years festivities in New York City. They had both gotten married straight out of high school, and unlike most of their neighbors, they still loved each other very much. Both women jumped from their seats when they heard a loud banging sound on the door. A most peculiar banging. It sounded like...no...it couldn't be.
The blonde Cassandra flicked her hair back and looked up at a framed photo from so many years ago. When Clay was still here. When she was a normal, average small town housewife and not the hottest girl in town in a town full of hotties. That sound. That sounded almost like him.
She looked silently over at Meredith, who was silent herself. Another banging sound, with the same exact pitter-pat rhythm as little Clay's knock when he used to come home from school.
The rhythmical knocking erupted once more.
“I'm going to go answer it” announced Cassie, her heart palpitating. She got up, slowly walked over to the doors in her house shoes, unlocked the door, and saw Clay standing there.
“Hey Mom!”