Page 50 - Intra Muros October 2021

HUMOUR

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

48 | INTRAMUROS OCTOBER 2021