Leaving Brad to his first solo shift, Slim returned home where he monitored the jail, and the entire region, on state-of-the-art surveillance equipment.
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.
Aspiring as she did to a condition of divine omniscience, Mrs. Love’s favourite activity was keeping things under surveillance. She derived particular pleasure from reviewing dv of her son and his ‘nieces’ as they monitored Ukifune’s movements.
The Sphinx told Mr. Love he would overcome his despair if he visited Mrs. Love in the maximum security prison she called home. You can imagine how much this prospect appealed to Mr. Love.
Brad’s strategy for freeing Ukifune was brilliant in its simplicity. He would get a job as a guard at the jail and once therein he would release her. As fate would have it a new warden had been hired minutes before Brad called.
Favouring principles over pragmatism, Clive had locked Ukifune in the campus jail cell but neglected to relieve her of her phone. When at last the twitchy diminuendo of ostrich feet subsided to the silence of tombs, Ukifune called Brad.
Clive had gained enough authority within the department, and within the math world at large, to have Ukifune unjustly incarcerated for stealing his intellectual property. For good measure he also accused her of having terrorist affiliations.
Humiliated by his nieces, Mr. Love left the station and wandered for weeks, stripped naked to abase himself beneath the elements and the judgement of whatever gods might be. At last he came upon the Sphinx, just moments after the Well-Dressed Albatross had shuffled painfully on.
But the Well-Dressed Albatross was different since the loss of his last leg. No longer able to fly, he moved slowly from one cantina to the next. Often, in hallucinations brought on by the medication, he would encounter the Sphinx and her enigma.
In fact Ukifune had done a fine job with the stump and the Well-Dressed Albatross had resumed his normal activities almost unimpeded.
It was in Clive’s nature to explore incongruities within a system. Wandering the campus grounds at 4:00 am, Clive noted a single lit window: the residence of Brad and Ukifune, returned from treating the WDA’s lost appendage.
