Aries the Ram

It was the Spring Equinox and the Sun was finally back into the northern hemisphere. On the days when it wasn’t too cloudy, the rays felt warmer and gleaned brighter. There was still about a foot of snow on the ground, but even that helped to reflect the rays and brighten the sky that much more. However, it also meant that the winter maker was not ready to leave his perch just yet. He had grown quite comfortable over that past five months, and was quite reluctant to grab his things and go to hide away for a while, as he was supposed to do this time of year. He had enjoyed a good year. He made a lot of snow fall. His big pale blue eyes were joyed to see the sheets of ice across the land reflecting back to him as he gazed down from his perch on high. He had made the wind blow on and on, and it felt good on his face. He did not want to go just yet.

A couple weeks passed and the old man finally got tired and grumpy. The piles of snow were dwindling as the air warmed up and he realized that there was nothing he could do about it. He gathered his things and started to make way. Down below, as the snow piles diminished bit by bit, the people in the town started getting up and about. At one house down at the end of the lane, a man was inspired to look out the window, after several months of not caring to do so. He saw something strange out in the back yard. Poking out of the snow drift were three or four heads. It was hard to tell. As it melted more and more each day, he could see that there were four heads. One was a ram with big round horns that were formed on each side of his head, which resembled two nautiluses that had just launched themselves out of the ocean and were trying to suck the ram’s eyes out right through the cranium.

I see four heads, the man told himself, as if to document the occurrence verbally. A ram, a stag, a snake and an old woman with a scarf over her head. As the snow melted further, he returned to the window every day to see how much more of the objects he could see. He didn’t know if they were alive or just statuary, or from whence they had come, for he had lived there for generations and never once had he seen anything out his back window except some of the common beings one always sees, like some robins and chickadees, finches and warblers, rabbits and squirrels. So, this was new and he didn’t know what to make of it. Sometimes he thought he saw them moving and that made him sure of their animacy, but then when he looked again it seemed like they were still.

Stranger still, as the snow receded, the man could see that below the heads were human bodies, all except for the woman in the kerchief, as her body seemed to be akin to a boulder. 

The man could not hear very well, so he did not know if there were any sounds coming from the area back there behind the dead elm tree where these figures had appeared. He was afraid to go out and get a closer look. As the snow melted further, he could see several structures come into view as well, shelters woven of twigs and leaves, tents, shopping carts covered with tarps and blankets. He finally felt comfortable, or perhaps, desperate enough to get help and called his wife and child over to the window to take a look.

His child was born mute and could not speak, but could see many more things that had not been originally noticed by the old man, The wife was blind, but she could hear the low rumbling sounds and low chatter of conversation coming from the clearing behind the tree, whereas the others could not. At nightfall, with the waxing crescent moon hanging low in the western sky right above the guiding light of Venus, the three of them were filled with a sense of daring and purpose. They grabbed some flashlights and headed out the door to investigate.

They trekked through the slush towards the four figures. The murmur of desperate voices was very clear to the wife but inaudible to the other two. The child saw everything clearly and registered a lot of things tossed about in the mud and melting snow. It was very dirty and smelled bad as well. They could all recognize that. It soon became clear that there were more beings back there, little people that were scattered around on the ground, or huddled under blankets beneath their improvised shelters. The ram, the stag, the snake and the old woman were moving for sure, their heads bobbing and their eyes gleaming. The wife could hear them talking. The man, wife and child stood there a few feet away, taking it all in, and wondering what it could mean. Who were these creatures and why were they here. Why did the camp seem sad and desperate? Why was there a sense of death and foreboding, but also an unmistakable vibrancy, as if the inhabitants of the encampment were desperately clinging to life and yet wringing everything that they could out of it before it was gone.

The blind woman suddenly said “yes, OK.” And approached the old woman with the scarf kerchief and the boulder body. The two of them talked and nodded and laughed as the husband and child held back, shining their flashlights around and trying to ascertain what it was that was happening in their back yard. They had heard about the homeless encampments that had been popping up all throughout the town, growing and growing, getting flushed out of one place only to reappear in another similar space down the road. These were hard times and many citizens had been left without a home to call their own, relying on donated food, scavenged items and numbing narcotics to survive the harsh conditions; the wind and icy cold, isolation, lack of funds, psychic pain, emotional distress and otherwise. After a while, the wife let out a loud sigh and turned around to beckon to the other two, bidding them come forward. They warily approached and then the three of them walked warily through the encampment.

The child led his mother by the hand as she related to them what she had heard from the old woman, who was known as Cailleach. It had been revealed to the wife that the four beings at the front of the camp had all recently fallen upon hard times indeed. Quite literally, as they had all fallen from the sky, having been evicted from the astral plane for having overstayed their welcome. The four of them were all winter gods, older than the hills, who possessed power to shape the earth and the destiny of all beings who trod upon it. Besides Cailleach, the other three were Aries the Ram, Kukulan the Serpent and Wapiti the Elk Stag. There had been a fifth companion, another fallen God of winter that arrived with them, but who had unfortunately succumbed to addiction upon arrival and had overdosed on fentanyl. Even Gods struggle, Cailleach had told the wife. Look at us here, discarded and forgotten, no one looks after us.

We were worshipped for millenia, the Cailleach had said, as her three companions bowed their heads and stared at the ground, embarrassed and ashamed. Then, we fell from the sky because no one prayed to us anymore. No one put out offerings to us, thanked us for all we had done. No one even got mad at us or scolded us for their suffering, which was OK to do. We liked that as well, for it meant that we mattered. But now, it’s like we have been forgotten altogether, and one day we just fell to Earth down into this camp.

We don’t need to be worshiped; Aries the Ram suddenly averred. Maybe that was a bit too pretentious. But how about just a little bit of attention? A hot meal and a shower would be nice. Some acknowledgement of our existence perhaps, would that be too much to ask for? Kukulan and Wapiti nodded their heads in agreement.

The wife told the husband and child all that she had heard, as they traipsed among the encampment residents, both human and non-human, sprawled upon the ground wrapped in blankets and sleeping bags that were torn and stained. Maybe we can start a Go Fund Me page, the child suggested. The husband shook his head. I don’t think that’s called for here. We can’t solve this problem with money, Spring is here now. Who knows? Maybe these winter gods come down here every year during their off season and we just never noticed them before now. They’ll go back to the sky once it’s their time again.

The wife shook her head and spoke again. I suggest that we build a fire and give thanks for the Spring. I suggest that we bake some bread to celebrate our gratitude, lots of bread, and we can bring it out here to the camp and share it with everyone. We will plant wildflowers and put out offerings to the Sun and the Moon, and ask them to take back their fallen angels, take them back into the celestial plane and restore them to their rightful positions. And also, the child added, we will ask forgiveness for our own selfishness and ignorance, and we will ask that the people in the encampment be provided for and taken care of. Along with the bread, we will make a big pot of soup and bring it here and share it with everyone in a feast of gratitude and celebration. The three of them turned and walked back home to begin preparing the meal.