Several weeks ago, whilst cleaning picture windows in the
den, using what I’d taken to be Windex, I began to daydream, to imagine being
done and off to something – anything! – more
interesting.
It was one of those dulcet coastal mornings with a light
breeze, a gossamer haze off the ocean, and sunlight filtering through Sycamore
leaves…big, floppy, smug-looking, patchworks of xylem and phloem that all too
often, detached from their moorings, oblige drudgerous cleanups of their own.
Time plodded by, and my bottle of Windex slowly emptied.
Yet it wasn’t the growing ullage that got my attention. Nor was
it the brazen alligator lizard that skittered past on the tan-colored stucco, vaulting
to the flagstones below like a predacious little revenant from the Jurassic. Nor
was it the lurid squeal of Michelin rubber from Frottage Blvd. at Chillido, or the
whirr of a humming bird over my head, or even the sodden splat of titmouse poop
against the top rung of my ladder.
No, it was the fact that my right arm had somehow gone
through the windowpane almost up to the elbow, straight into to the den!
Yet there had come no jangle of shattering glass or clink of
falling shards. My arm had simply passed soundlessly through.
From round about where the glass – or what ought to have
been glass – met the skin of my half-inserted limb, there emanated an eerie
blue radiance like the glow of uranium in a reactor pool, blurring the boundary
between skin and glass, serving almost as a kind of gasket or seal. As my arm, nearly
of its own accord, pushed further through the pane, the uncanny blue halo sputtered
and fizzled as though the traversing skin were striking sparks from a vitreous edge.
Yet there remained no pain or bleeding, no rasp of shredding
skin – only a small sensation of warmth.
FFFFFFFFT -- I yanked my arm back with a start!
The glass, now so clear it seemed to have vanished, was still
just visible if you looked at it from nearly edge on. As I gazed spellbound,
the pane gave off a single sudden coruscation, jolting me alert the way a mesmerist
snaps a subject out of a trance.
Such were the curious events that morning that stirred me
from apathy and introduced me to what, on account of its provenance, I shall call
glass~ix. What I’d taken for Windex, moreover, proved to be a species of liquid
which, when applied to ordinary window glass, produced a most extraordinary
effect.
But more of that latter.
To be perfectly candid, ever since moving into this house,
I’d noticed something peculiar about the den. Events viewed through its
windows, whether from indoors or out-, appeared to be out of sync – an effect like
one of those TV movies where you hear the conversation before the actors’ lips start
moving.
Whereas sound entered the den unimpeded, the passage of
light through its windows was slowed – sometimes to quite a leisurely pace indeed. For example, you might hear the lawn mower
running yet all the while it was the sprinkler you saw at work. On one
occasion, when inside the den it was merely late afternoon, elsewhere about the
house the time was already past 9:00 p.m.!
 |
Light refraction in an acrylic block.
Courtesy, Fir0002, English Wikipedia
|
Truth to tell, the preternatural passage of my right arm
through the window pane that extraordinary morning came more as reassurance
than bother. If the very light of day got no special treatment in the den, why
should my arm fare any better? My senses weren’t playing tricks after all!
In the days that followed, as I tried to absorb this uncanny
business, I made discoveries anew. Not only were solid objects and light effected
by glass~ix, but so were one’s thoughts and imaginings – mental conceptions, of
course, being just so much electromagnetism. Bad, muddled, or malefic notions
bonked right off the glass or tended to get stuck going through, manifesting as
vague smudges or chaotic whorls of dark and light. In contrast good ideas
flashed freely by, exciting the blue aura in their passage and leaving the
glass perceptibly clearer.
Thus, if one went about the den in a positive frame of mind,
the windows became more lucid, and the room brightened. Contrariwise, a dark
mood tarnished the windows, rendering them more opaque. Just as those tricky Oakley sunglasses darken in ultraviolet light, so the windows of my den dim in the
presence of attitude.
As for the mysterious glass cleaner, glaze, polisher,
what-ever-it-was – the stuff I’d mistaken for Windex – it had come with the
house, its origin otherwise cryptic. I found it hermetically sealed in a
repurposed Chock Full O’Nuts Coffee tin kicking about the garage. But Windex it
surely was not. Rather, it was Medix with alcohol-ix, an amazing fluid that
polymerizes ordinary soda-lime glass into a type of borosilicate matrix, namely
glass-ix, not found in nature or even in stores (including Home Depot).
Though it may be surprising to some, I must confess that my encounter
with glass-ix and its apparent progenitor, Medix mit alcohol-ix, has left me amazed and humbled – stronger in the
conviction that all things are possible through faith in physics. But for a
leap of faith, for example, I’d never have figured out the refractive index for glass-ix:
The best of it may be that by modulating my thoughts,
glass-ix in effect liberates me. In the midst of drudgery and toil, it allows me
to muse at great length over almost nothing at all, yet not miss out on the
dinner bell.
I actually look forward to washing windows now!
Amazing glaze, how
sweet the sight,
That saved a drudge
like me,
I once was blind but
saw the light,
Was bored but now I'm free.
If you’d like to partake of this life-changing experience yourself,
contact me*. I’ll let you know when the windows need cleaning. Bring a clean
rag and a positive attitude (no Cloud Nine, if you please), and I’ll supply you
with all the window cleaner you need.
And, yes, its absolutely
free.
*Individual experience with
Medix and glass~ix may vary. Open to persons 21 years of age or older.
