Leprechaun Lemons
By Tamara-Lee Brereton-Karabetsos
The leprechaun dove for a glint in the gutter. A penny? No—lemon juice, liquid brass. He licked it. His beard fizzed into tangerine curls; boots sprouted wings; alley shadows performed puppet plays about unpaid debts. Coins melted into triangles, spirals, and a rabbit scribbling existential poetry. Puddles whispered secrets; sidewalks murmured in old pennies’ tongues. The air smelled of burnt caramel and forgotten promises. Luck was citrus chaos, bending rules, spitting riddles. He laughed, or maybe gravity did. Nothing was gold. Everything necessary. Every step rewrote the alley’s memory.
Tamara-Lee Brereton-Karabetsos is a science writer based in Greece who refuses to accept that “thermodynamics” and a “messy living room” are two different things. When she isn’t explaining why our cells are basically rusting like a 1986 Honda Civic, she’s finding the poetic resonance in gas discharge lamps and bad breakups. She chronicles the molecular mid-life crises of the universes at Substack/tamaraleewrites.
Thank you Ratty 🐀