There's None So Blind

January 6th is the real date for Epiphany, but I think I experienced it this very weekend instead. I’m delighted to inform you that my gradual descent into the abyss of impiety was successfully halted by a rather strange incident that took place only yesterday. I haven’t previously believed in fairies or goblins or anything that can’t be proven scientifically, but on Saturday I was visited by a creature from the mists of the netherworld; a chimera perhaps, but it seemed real enough to me.

For yes, I was visited by a leprechaun. Now I know you probably think I’d been taking too much of the old Liffey Water, but really - I was stone-cold sober when he appeared. Quite a charming little fellow really, and seemingly a fountain of wisdom - he talked to me about relative structuralism, Marxist ideology, as well as both the theoretical and applied sciences of linguistics. So convincing was he about the semantics of whether Phenomenology really was the forerunner of Existentialism or whether it was the forerunner of quantum mechanics instead, that I had no option to believe everything else he said to me.

I’m not usually credulous, but when I’m faced with such overwhelming evidence that not only do leprechauns exist, but that they’re not always the mischievous little miscreants we’re meant to believe they are, and that they can actually bring messages of hope and support, I’m afraid that I have to tell you that I suspend my disbelief.

And this little fella didn’t pull any punches. Oh no - in language both profane and obscene, he warned me of the dire consequences of my continued bad behaviour. He told me that I could no longer sustain my hedonism and that if I didn’t mend my ways and soon, I was facing certain decadence. Well, nobody welcomes a fall from grace like that, so I now have no choice but to heed his wise words. So, it’s out with the whisky and in with the early nights instead. As I write, I’m tucked into my bed with my curlers in, and my face-pack on. Tomorrow I shall begin a new exercise routine of such strict measures that it can’t be long before I’m re-born as an Adonis; a paragon of virtue. I have to believe the leprechaun’s wise words. I have no choice.

I’ll tell you something – scoff at this you might, but I find it easier to believe in the existence of this wise little man than it is to believe that my new fridge-freezer will actually arrive tomorrow, as promised. Watch this space.