Page 44 - Blue Valley Issue 5 2021

HUMOUR

Image: d2vn@mweb.co.za

Road trip!

THE DISAPPEARING BIC

BY JAMES CLARKE

lot is known about the migratory habits It is well known that 13.2 million tons of Bic desks or having been lifted from banks and
of supermarket trolleys (Checkerstrollii pens are annually produced in Johannesburg offices by employees and customers. This, say
A anderingtonia) that escape from malls - enough to bury Table Mountain. Yet they all banks, is why it is necessary to increase bank
w
and find their way down to quiet streams or disappear without a trace. charges.
lanes often to spend the rest of their days
under a sheltering tree. Even television sets “The average life of an ordinary Bic pen is 1hr Some time back, to find out once and for all
(Oggleboxia intens) can be restless. During the 14 mins,“ an executive of Bic headquarters in where they go to die, Bic sent an expedition
night they often migrate from their suburban Industria told me in confidence. In confidence! north. It reached Kenya where, en passant, (as
homes to outlying areas. (Silly man.) He did not wish to be named. we writers say in italics) it found a huge pile
of elephant ivory cunningly disguised as a
But what about the most migratory species of “The pointed tops disappear first,“ he said. “Then mountain under a thin layer of ice and snow. It
all – the lowly Bic pen? the little thing at the end of the pen goes – was called Kilimanjaro. The expedition leader
usually swallowed. We don’t care where they go, learned that kilimanja means “where“ and ro
Nothing on earth wanders off of its own free will but we‘d love to know where the rest goes.“ means “elephants go to die“.
quite as secretively as the Scribendia mobilis, the
Bic. But has any agency ever sent an intrepid He said that “each Bic pen is capable of drawing The expedition did not allow itself to be
team to find out where they go? a continuous line from Johannesburg City Hall distracted from its principal quest and pressed
to within 13.3 metres of Trompsburg’s municipal on to the River Oz, a tributary of the Rufiji
In my childhood I read of the elephants’ boundary “yet we know of nobody who has where they heard an enigmatic local folksong
graveyard somewhere deep inside Africa where started to draw a line from Johannesburg – Buranthu ngthla m'Bik gwamagadi. This, the
all elephants go to die and where at night City Hall and get beyond Alrode South. Why? leader noted, translated as: “Follow the yellow
thousands of tusks gleam under the moon. Because the pens disappear long before Alrode Bic road“. After making volumes of notes, this
North! was the expedition’s first clue to the possible
But the little pens? Do they also go somewhere proximity of the Bic graveyard.
to die? They disappear from government offices in
Pretoria at the rate of 127 an hour. Alas, it was the leader’s last note - his pen
Think about it. Nobody has ever seen one empty disappeared! As a result, he suffered a severe
of its ink lying in the veld. Nor has anybody been I have been aware of stories of ballpoints attack of the deaths and the Bic graveyard
known to use one until it runs dry. travelling enormous distances after rolling off remains an enigma.

42 • Issue 5 2021• BLUE VALLEY NEWS