The Leprechaun of Beautiful Women

The Leprechaun of Beautiful Women

A young man in his teens was walking through the fall woods to blow off steam.  Nothing in his life seemed to be working out well, and he had no chance of finding a girlfriend.  He walked along, kicking pinecones down the path, when he heard a tiny voice crying for help.  Just of the path, he saw a pair of tiny legs sticking out from under a fallen log.  Without a thought, he went over and with one arm lifted the log and put it aside.

Underneath, he saw a tiny leprechaun that had been pinned under the log and was now free. 

“Oh thank you, kind sir.  I only visit these woods every 20 years and did not want to spend the day trapped under that old rowan tree log.  May I grant you a wish?”

“Umm...” the teen started, as he started every phrase he spoke, “well, I guess I’d like to be cool, and handsome, and have a fast car, and a hot girlfriend, and lotsa money, and....”

“Wait wait wait, young sonny,” the leprechaun chided.  “I only have a wee magic left. Please only one thing.”

The young man looked around, saw the beautiful colours of fall all about, and with a defeatist air said “I know I am cursed to never BE beautiful, but I would like to be always surrounded by it.”

The leprechaun smiled wisely.  “A profound choice.  So, it is now your curse to be forever surrounded by Beauty.”  With a wink, the leprechaun ran off into the woods.

The teen finished his walk in good spirits but once out of the woods, his old neighborhood looked exactly the same, just as dull and plain as before.  The next year at school was the same as the one before, and at no time, was there any indication that more beauty had come into his life.  He finally decided that he had only dreamed of the leprechaun and that life would only bring what it would.

Two decades later, after a hard day, the man in his 30s feels a need to grab a coffee near his old neighborhood and remembers the leprechaun.  The leaves are all turned and he decides to take a walk in the woods like he did in old times.  He walks down the old path until he swears he can see the little leprechaun  sitting on an old stump, smoking a pipe.  He decides to give the imp a piece of his mind.

“Oh hello there, young fellow,” the sprite calls.  “I see you remembered where I’d be.  And how is your mother?”

The man told him that she was in good health, full of leisure, and was the epitome of wisdom and love to those around her.

“Oh, and that is good.  And the ring on your finger compels me to ask about your wife.”

The man says that his lovely wife is patient and kind and has loved him since they met.

“Oh, very nice.  And the Dora the Explorer band-aid on your finger says you have a young lassie in your house.”

The man says the most beautiful creature on God’s green earth of all time is his daughter and how he cannot help gushing about her to his kind co-workers. 

The man raised his fist towards the leprechaun’s tiny face. 

“Just wanting to say thanks for everything.  Everywhere I look is Beauty, and if I don’t see it at first, it’s my log to move from my eyes.   Fist-bump, dude.”

The leprechaun very gingerly touched knuckles with the man.  “I have to be careful what I do these days.  I haven’t had any magic since that stupid log fell on me.”

 

END

Myles Hildebrand