{"id":709,"date":"2021-02-14T11:17:50","date_gmt":"2021-02-14T11:17:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nethergatewriters.org\/?p=709"},"modified":"2021-03-30T19:23:41","modified_gmt":"2021-03-30T19:23:41","slug":"death-and-all-his-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nethergatewriters.com\/?p=709","title":{"rendered":"Death and All His Friends"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Roddie McKenzie<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hullo-err Big Man!\u00a0 Wakey- Wakey!\u00a0 Thons a brammer o\u2019 a boatl ye goat therr.\u00a0 Whit\u2019s the chance o\u2019 a wee bevvy? Ah could ferr go wan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whit?  Who the fuck am I?  Aw cum oan Jimmy, yer naw serious?  Yer joking. Naw? Ye that bloatered?  Really NAW?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do ye no clock the claes and the big chib? Does that no gie ye a scoobie?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ahm Death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aw, fur fucks sake\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Calm doon pal, dinnae shite yersel. Ahm no here fur you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ahm knackered, bin a helluva day (if ye\u2019ll pardon the pun). Ah saw yer light oan, keeked in the windae and thought the boay might offer us a wee dram.  That Okay-dokay?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019ll be magic, smells the bizness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, gled tae hear it… but yer oer the top man, nae thanks required.  C\u2019moan\u2026 stoap greetin\u2019 ahm naw the bogey man- yer guid health, c\u2019moan…swally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rerr eh?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Busy?  Ahm dain\u2019 mair hoose calls and hoaspital visits thin Dr Finlay- it\u2019s jist radio-rental noo…ran aff ma feet, look, wurked ma fingerrs<\/strong> tae the bone- Ahm mair knackered than wan o thae delivery drivers, know whit ah mean?   Why?  It\u2019s the new boay have taken oan- wee Covie.  Gie the laddie his due, he nivver lets up alweys finding new bizzness.  Mind ye he goat loads o\u2019 government help fae Boris and Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At first ah thought it wiz magic- thought ah could afford a wee hoaliday in Tigray or sumwhehr sunny. But ah nivver get any time aff.  He forgets ahm the heid bummer, no him. It\u2019s a marathon boay, no a sprint.  Disnae listen tho.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An it\u2019s causin a stooshie wi ma ither china\u2019s: \u2018Flu goat the hump and Ebola\u2019s like a bear wi a sair heid.  Ahm an auld man- bin in this gemme a lang time, an\u2019as lang as the hatches and dispatches match up, ahm fair made up. Ahm no intae empire building, cannae be daein wi this turbo-capitalism like Covie does. Ah could dae withoot it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whits the big fuss oan the frontay yer peper?  Gies a swatch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A vaccine has been tested and approved Eh? Ha!  That will pit the malky oan the wee bam, that will pit the hems oan him, hopefully fur guid.  Mebbe thin ah kin get back tae normal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Worried aboot tredd?   Naw me, aw thae anti-vaxers will keep me in business jist fine, jist fine.  Tickety Boo. Onywey, thanks buddy fur the wee refreshment, but ah better git offski.  Ahm away tae see yer neebor- bet he disnae feel sae clever aboot that perty he went tae last month.  Cheerio.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Roddie McKenzie’s darkly satirical Scots monologue, Death’s a got way too much on and needs a break.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":743,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[34,13,33,35,19],"class_list":["post-709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories","tag-comedy","tag-covid19","tag-death","tag-scots","tag-stories"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nethergatewriters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nethergatewriters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nethergatewriters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nethergatewriters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nethergatewriters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=709"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/nethergatewriters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":867,"href":"https:\/\/nethergatewriters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709\/revisions\/867"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nethergatewriters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nethergatewriters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nethergatewriters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nethergatewriters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}