To paraphrase the hyperbole of James Joyce, history was a nightmare from which the Well-Dressed Albatross was trying to awake.
Pim Comic Strip
How I came to write Pim
People often ask how I came to write Pim. It seems like a thousand years since I discovered Pim, or that Pim
discovered me. Thankfully I kept detailed notes and saved photos from that time. While I can’t swear to the
absolute accuracy of what you are about to read, I have done my best to capture the essence of how Pim entered my life.
It wasn’t unheard of for Mr. Love to take credit for things that others had done. Being as powerful as he was, Mr. Love was likely to be believed.
In vain the Well-Dressed Albatross searched for the cantina his other and vanished self had spoken of. For he was caught in a loop that took him endlessly past the same landmarks. After many days of this he heard a familiar voice behind him, and shuddered.
Before they could talk more about the jars, the Well-Dressed Albatross saw himself become occupied by something invisible, move toward it, and disappear as mysteriously as himself had appeared. Alone again, the Well-Dressed Albatross went on his way.
On the way to the cantina the Well-Dressed Albatross and the Well-Dressed Albatross passed two inscrutable jars, open and three-quarters full of cloudy salt water.
As had happened in the past to many a lone wanderer across Popocatépetl’s shifting slopes, the Well-Dressed Albatross encountered himself. An affable self, thankfully.
Ignorant of Fortune’s upward swing, and in abject despair, the Well-Dressed Albatross marched upwards to the gaping mouth of Popocatepétl. Observing him from a distance, Pim and Bim riffed on sentiments from Wallace Stevens (as so often, in barren lands, they did.)
Clive discovered that moments before his death Uncle Theosophus had won 150,000 Euros on a lottery ticket now resting on the side table. Being a mathematician Clive quickly ran the conversation. And it totalled 3,244,539.19 Mexican Pesos!
Uncle Thanatos urged Clive to visit the Vienna home of late Uncle Theosophus—a place the Well-Dressed Albatross had recently been—in search of compensation, or at least a clue. This Clive did, moving through the yard of Emerald Cedars and insinuating himself through an aperture.
