The Hangman

It used to be the most dangerous stretch of road in the country. A place you would not like to find yourself in after dark, whether on foot, bicycle or driving a car, if you valued your life or your balls.

A particularly notorious part of it was between Bloemfontein and Brandfort. Many people had mysteriously disappeared on it without trace.

Sparks and Cisco from Thaba Ntsho sat drinking at Tajes shebeen in Four-And-Six location in Bloemfontein and were planning to drive on to Brandfort, their destination, that evening.

“You fellows are taking a chance driving on that road at night” Sello, their friend, told them. “Just last month I was from a funeral in Brandfort and had guzzled a lot of beer at the Wie-sien-ons party. Along the road I felt the need to go and relieve myself. My bladder was bursting. I climbed through the barbed wire fence around the farm next to the road and headed for the clump of trees and dense bush a few meters from the fence. I stood behind a tree and pissed on a round stone covered with dirt. As the urine washed the stone clean, I said to myself, wait a minute that is no stone I am pissing on. It is a skull. The skull of a human being! Man, you should have seen me running out of that place back to the car with my fly still open”.

Other patrons at the shebeen also chipped in and corroborated what Sello had said.

“Ja, the farmers in that area are known for killing farm workers and burying them in shallow graves among the bushes under the trees. If they catch you walking on the road next to their farm at night they kill you, castrate you and hang your testicles on the barbed wire to serve as a warning to trespassers and thieves planning to steal sheep”.

Sparks and Cisco dismissed all of this as urban legend and drove to Brandfort late that night.

About halfway to Brandfort, Sparks also felt the need to go and relieve himself. He, unlike Sello, was not going to be foolish enough to jump through the fence to do that. He would stand right next to it and pee through it onto the bad farmers land. He did that. While doing so, he noticed the smell of something rotting. It was coming from an object impaled on the barbed wire fence. It looked suspiciously like human testicles. He stepped closer to have a better look and let out a blood curdling scream. It was testicles. Human testicles. Like Sello, he ran for dear life back to the car with his fly still open.

“What is it? What is it?’’Cisco asked.

Sparks told him what he had seen ‘with his own two eyes’.

“Nonsense.” Cisco said and went to the boot of the car and took out a torch.

“What are you doing? You are not planning to go to the fence, are you?”

“That is exactly what I am going to do; see for myself what this shit is all about.”

“Ijoo, joo, joo!”

Cisco went to the fence, shone the torch along its length and stopped when he saw what Sparks had seen. He went nearer and stood looking at the object for a while, shaking his head.

He then took out his handkerchief and gingerly removed the object from the barb it was impaled on, walked back to the car and dangled the foul smelling object in front of Sparks face.

“No! No! Keep it away from me. Keep it away from me!” Sparks cried out, recoiling in horror.

Cisco shone the torch on it. It was a dead sparrow. It had been killed by a butcherbird, also known as a laksman, and impaled on the fence as the butcherbird was wont to do.

When Sparks saw what it was, he burst out laughing. Cisco joined him in the laughter. They laughed until their bellies were sore, holding on to each other for support.

In a clump of trees, a few meters from the fence, the farmer stood watching them. He raised his rifle.

They were still laughing when the bullets hit them.

The farmer would later claim in court he mistook them for baboons which were destroying his crops.