“Hold fast to dreams for when dreams go, life is a barren field frozen with snow.” — Langston Hughes

It was not, for her, a pretty thing to watch.

Each year at this time, this man, her hero, would gird his aging loins in Gortex and fleece and go out to fight the Great White Bull that was the snow.

This man, once a young, startlingly handsome warrior, a prince of the city, strode the golden beaches of the West, drawing deep perfumed sighs from passers-by. He was, to her, the boy from Ipanema.

When they moved from the orange sunsets of the West to this birch-white vastness, he knew what lay in store. He knew that the gods of winter were harsh, biblical gods given to fits of anger. They were not kind, these gods, and had to be appeased.

But he would have none of that.

When the Great White Bull that was the snow came roaring down from the north on the treads of the great polar vortex, he would arm himself with the weapons of war, the big flat shovels with long handles. Then, as his neighbors watched with slack-jawed amazement, he would battle the Great White Bull that was the snow, flailing his shovel like Ivanhoe’s lance, like Arthur’s sword, like Prospero’s staff.

Winter after winter the old man strode into the thick of it, his beard and hair full of the blood of the Great White Bull that was the snow, his hands chapped and frozen, his eyes tearing with the torturous cold.

And despite his pain, he beat down the enemy, and while she, who was his lady fair, stood applauding in the warmth of the house, he would hold his shovel over his head and bow to her. He was, she remembered, her Ivanhoe, her Prince Valiant, her defender.

But now, in this strange year, the fickle weather, drugged by the poison of the Spanish El Nino, had turned on him.

As she watched from the big windows, he stood on the barren ground, an October ground, cold, frozen, brown ground. Brown, she thought? In December? So close to Christmas?

She mused that this was, in a way, biblical. Was this not similar to the landscape of Jesus’ birth? There was no snow around the manger, no trees decorated with pagan baubles. There was only the holy Earth and nothing more. But he would have none of that talk.

She watched him there, mumbling to himself as he scanned the cloudless sky, shaking his fist at the sun.

He seemed caught up in a delicious and magical delusion, convinced that he was still her champion, and that sooner or later, the Great White Bull would return.

And on this frigid morning, he forced himself to go forth to do battle.

Despite deep misgivings, she cheered him on and made him a sturdy breakfast of egg and a bowl of Irish oatmeal fortified with honey, and helped him on with his choice of puffer and hoodie.

“Good luck, Sweetie,” she whispered, holding back her tears, “Give ’em hell.”

Out he went, convinced that within the hour, the forecast rain would turn to snow.

How sad, she thought, as he kicked angrily at the remaining autumn leaves, he was her Lawrence of Arabia without sand, batting away sand fleas.

He was still her hero who had studied Cantonese so that he could read the fortune cookies to her in the original.

He was still out there as the skies darkened. She called to him to come in and have his Ovaltine and graham cracker treat. She shouted that the 6 o’clock news said no precipitation was in the forecast, that all across the country, a calm had descended. It would be a (shudder) brown Christmas.

But he sat there on the cold tree stump, shovel in hand, watching neighbors in light autumn clothing passing by and waving. She knew they were mocking him, thinking him grown old and finally floating into that cloud of dementia.

But in her heart she knew that sooner or later the Great White Bull would come, because deep in the evil of it, it remembered its noble foe, and would not, for the world, break his heart.

J.P. Devine is a Waterville writer.