The Pipe Strip

When I was 18... 18 years old, I saw for the first time in my life... I saw an image of clarity. I saw a comic strip... a three panel comic strip that, though simple as it seemed, changed me... changed my being, changed who I am... Made me who I am… Enlightened me...
The strip, Garfield, the comic strip was new... no more than maybe a month and a half since inception, since... since coming into existence... and there it was before me in print, I saw it... a comic strip... What was it called?
Garfield.
The story here is of a man, a plain man. He is Jon, but he is more than that... I will get to this later, but first let us say that he's Jon, a plain man. And then there is a cat... Garfield.
This is the nature of the world, here. When I see the world, the politics, the future, the... the satellites in space, and... the people who put them there… You can look at everything as a man and a cat... two beings, in harmony and at war...
Jon Arbuckle, he sits here, legs crossed... comfortable in his home, and he reads his newspaper... The news of the world, perhaps... and then he extends his fingers lightly, delicately... he taps his fingers on an end table, and he feels for something… What is it? It is something he needs, but it is not there. And then he looks up, slightly cockeyed, and he thinks... Now where could my pipe be?
And then it happens... You see it, you see... it's almost like divine intervention, suddenly it is there, and it overpowers you...
A cat is smoking a pipe.
It is the man's pipe, it's Jon's pipe, but the cat... this cat, Garfield, is smoking the pipe... and from afar, and someplace near, but not clear... near but not clear... The man calls out... Jon calls out, he is shocked. "Garfield!" he shouts.
Garfield. The cat's name.
Everything about it is perfect. I can only describe it as a miracle creation, something came together... the elements aligned... It is like the comets, the cosmic orchestra that is up there over your head... The immense, enormous void is working all for one thing, to tell you one thing… Gas and rock, and purity, and nothing.
I will say this... When I see the pipe strip... and I mean every single time I look at the lines, the colors, the shapes that make up the three panel comic… I see perfection.