BILLY is out digging for potatoes in a field behind the Ranch Tent City. He encounters a ZETA in the mist. As children will, he accepts this, taking what the ZETA offers in his outstreatched hand, some fruit and a vial that the ZETA telepathically relays is for his sister TAMMY. It is gloomy as though early dawn.
CAMERA PANS
the trees along the creek, seeing their stark outline against the gray sky. Their leaves have fallen off, not as they do in fall when they color and then drop, but because about half have turned a sickly yellow and dropped while the remaining are green. During this panning of the trees and brush along the creek bed abutting the field, we hear scrapping and chopping at the soil.
CAMERA PANS
around to where we see BILLY, with a short hoe and digging tool, turning the earth looking for potatoes. He has a cloth sack with lumps in it, lying on the ground beside him. He is dusty and frankly dirty in places, as much from his work as from infrequent baths. He looks solemn, is alone, and has a slight worried look on this face.
BILLY drops to his knees to dig by hand at one point, and the camera backs up to take in a gray ZETA foot, thicker than ours but with a thin leg above. The foot appears to be booted in a seamless gray material. BILLY sees the foot and freezes, but does not look concerned. He eases back into a sitting position, putting his legs out in front of him at bit, and looks up, squinting. We don't see the Zeta, just a ZETA hand, long slender fingers without any thumb in view other than a hint, a bump where the thumb should be. The ZETA hand holds a capped vial, a smoky colored glass. BILLY starts talking to the ZETA as though he has been doing this all his life, as though there were nothing unusual about the scene. He blurts out, in a natural and relaxed voice, as though talking to a family member he trusts. He speaks quickly and with fervor.
BILLY
She just won't talk to any of us. (At this tears well up in his eyes. Now with a quiver in his voice.) She stares at me like she doesn't see me.
Gulps now, and with his breath quickening as though he were about to start crying, tears starting to stream down his face.
BILLY
... And I asked her to come with me, digging, so we could skip stones like we used to, and she didn't even say nothing .. nothing!
Wipes the tears away with the palm of his hand against one cheek. BILLY jerks his head up suddenly, looking clear faced at the ZETA (whose face we never see), a moment of silence as he is obviously listening to something intently. He glances at the vial and raises his hand to take it from the ZETA. He smiles slightly through his dusty tears, glancing at the ZETA briefly during this, by way of thanks.