Page 50 - FWG 9 October 2021

Humour

Road trip!

IMAGE: d2vn@mweb.co.za

the disaPPeariNg bic

B y James cL ar K e

A wanderingtonia) It is well known that 13.2 million tons travelling enormous distances after
lot is known about the migratory
of Bic pens are annually produced in
rolling off desks or having been lifted
habits of supermarket trolleys
(Checkerstrollii
from banks and offices by employees and
Johannesburg - enough to bury Table
that escape from malls and find
necessary to increase bank charges.
their way down to quiet streams or lanes Mountain. Yet they all disappear without customers. This, say banks, is why it is
a trace.
often to spend the rest of their days under
a sheltering tree. Even television sets “The average life of an ordinary Bic Some time back, to find out once and
(Oggleboxia intens) can be restless. During pen is 1hr 14 mins,“ an executive of Bic for all where they go to die, Bic sent
the night they often migrate from their headquarters in Industria told me in an expedition north. It reached Kenya
suburban homes to outlying areas. confidence. In confidence! (Silly man.) He where, en passant, (as we writers say in
did not wish to be named. italics) it found a huge pile of elephant
But what about the most migratory species ivory cunningly disguised as a mountain
of all – the lowly Bic pen? “The pointed tops disappear first,“ he under a thin layer of ice and snow. It was
said. “Then the little thing at the end of called Kilimanjaro. The expedition leader
Nothing on earth wanders off of its own free the pen goes – usually swallowed. We learned that kilimanja means “where“ and
will quite as secretively as the Scribendia don’t care where they go, but we‘d love to ro means “elephants go to die“.
mobilis, the Bic. But has any agency ever sent know where the rest goes.“
an intrepid team to find out where they go? The expedition did not allow itself to be
He said that “each Bic pen is capable distracted from its principal quest and
In my childhood I read of the elephants’ of drawing a continuous line from pressed on to the River Oz, a tributary of
graveyard somewhere deep inside Africa Johannesburg City Hall to within the Rufiji where they heard an enigmatic
where all elephants go to die and where 13.3 metres of Trompsburg’s municipal local folksong – Buranthu ngthla m'Bik
at night thousands of tusks gleam under boundary “yet we know of nobody gwamagadi. This, the leader noted,
the moon. who has started to draw a line from translated as: “Follow the yellow Bic road“.
Johannesburg City Hall and get beyond After making volumes of notes, this was
But the little pens? Do they also go Alrode South. Why? Because the pens the expedition’s first clue to the possible
somewhere to die? disappear long before Alrode North! proximity of the Bic graveyard.

Think about it. Nobody has ever seen one They disappear from government offices Alas, it was the leader’s last note - his pen
empty of its ink lying in the veld. Nor has in Pretoria at the rate of 127 an hour. disappeared! As a result, he suffered a
anybody been known to use one until it severe attack of the deaths and the Bic
runs dry. I have been aware of stories of ballpoints graveyard remains an enigma.

Fourways Gardens • 48 • October 2021