Left-field parody inspired by great pity I feel for president

WHENEVER I watch 7de Laan, I am reminded of Jan Mankie, the one-legged transport driver, a creation of Herman Charles Bosman, the most racist writer of short stories I have ever come across and whose book Jurie Steyn’s Post Office graces the shelf in the bookshop.

Mankie celebrated a “Mampoer” night at the ford on the Molopo River with his transport rider friends. The next morning he wondered why he felt so “gay and light” after crossing, a stiff wind blowing across the vlakte raising a cloud of dust.

This dust was not from the road. The white ants had chewed up his wagon and his load of Oregon pine. To his horror, he found that his wooden leg was gone and found himself standing on his moleskin, greyish coloured pants leg flapping in the wind.

After digesting this tale, I felt pity for my president, and could not desist from a bit of left-field parody. The horde of bloated termites now crawling out of the woodwork after a decade of deathly silence, leaving my president with an empty trouser leg to stand on, fills me with revulsion. Where were they when our presidentsinned?

Finally, the respect and pity I have for our president is infinitely greater than any I could conjure up for any of these johnny-come-latelies, who possibly were blinded by the glint emanating from a measly 30 pieces of silver shimmering in the dark.