He took me into his confidence on his favorite research project, an attempt to see wavelengths other than those in the visible spectrum. His enthusiasm was catching and there wasn't much hesitation. I signed the paper releasing the university from all responsibility in case of an "accident." So easy to sign one's life away—though it wasn't actually my life, only my eyesight.
The treatments began immediately. First, adaptation of vision to a dark room, like those used for flyers during the war. Then the drops of black liquid that the professor had invented, slowly spreading over the eyes, subtly altering the rods and cones of the retina, the nerve endings sensitive to light.
And I began to live in a gradually fading world. Have you ever wondered what it's like to go blind? The increasing dusk and darkness around the edges of your vision, the little errors and mistakes that begin to crop up in everyday life. Your blunder over a stool that you didn't quite see, your snubbing someone on the street whom you didn't recognize in time, the gradual awareness among your friends that something was wrong with your eyes and their crude attempts to make it "easier" for you.
For to all intents and purposes I was going blind. My "range" of vision remained the same but it was shifting down the scale. The first colors to fade out of my vision were violet and blue and their tints. The sky overhead gradually became colorless, magazine covers began to lose their appeal and slip into a bleak blending of yellows and reds. Then slowly, the other colors began to grow dim and less distinct until finally even red had faded from my sight.
But there were other colors that replaced them. Brilliant, scintillating colors that made seeing an adventure.
Describe them to you? How could you describe "red" and "green" to a person who was blind from birth? How can I describe iridescent and vliosheen to you? Do you think you could understand? Do you think you could "see" what I mean?
Oh, I could still get around in your world. I could still "see" people. All objects radiate heat, even ice. As an object's temperature goes up, the wavelength of the radiation given off goes up to the infra-red, then into the visible. I could tell how hot water was by looking at it. I could see people by the heat they gave off, glowing figures moving down the street and around the lab!
And still my range of vision shifted. Down to short waves and radio waves, the language of international communication, the wavelengths that continents and countries speak to each other in. Do you know how beautiful the aerial of your radio is, the different waves running down it like ripples across a pond? Have you ever seen the glorious pool of light around a radio broadcasting station? Have you ever marveled at the thin, trailing filaments of color tangling in the nest of television antennas that the city carries on its rooftops?