Thir’s friens ye mebbe hud at yin time that hae driftit awaa, but ithers ye haud on tae. Yin o the latter is ma pal, R, whae A’ll no nem here for fear o embarrassin him.
We wir at primary thegither. Efter the schuil we aye wint roon tae play at his bit. The thing is, they hud a shed, fou o bottles, cans o this and that, turpentine, pent stripper, we niver kent whit aw wis there.
But we fancied oorsels as kinna scientists, and mixed stuff thegither tae see whit wuid happen, wi nae knawledge o chemy or formuls or moleculs. And whiles the ootcome wis guffy, or it nippt oor een, like somethin wis gaun oan. Mebbe ther wis daungers in thon, corrosive or pizenous stuff in the bottles, but we didnae care. We wir like gods creatin oor ain wee universes.
We bided there until the ice-cream van cam room, we cuid hear the chimes o Greensleeves frae the shed. It micht hae been ma pal’s mum gied us threepenny bits tae gan and buy a cornet, yin each, wi reid raspberry-flavour stuff slittert on tap.
The years hae gaed by and here we are noo, naither o us in oor prime, gettin a bit forgetfu. Yit still we mind o thae gowden evenins, the mixin o stuff, yin thing slurpin on tap o anither. And suirely we made somethin then – somethin that wisnae uissfu, or that wis uissfu in a different wey, the constituents addit yin by yin, bondin, jinin.
And A thank ye, ma frien, noo that we’re gettin intae the evenin o oor day on the planet, fur the fizz frae the cans and bottles, the taste o ice-cream and raspberry, aw yon slitter and slaister, moleculs actin and reactin, the chemy o life.