[This is, to my mind, a rare shining gem of a short story. It is based on a remarkable idea, used as the centerpiece of a moving story about real people. It's all of nine pages long, but very rich for all of that. I don't believe I've ever been more impressed with a science fiction short story. I'll try to include just enough here to whet your appetite, without spoiling it. This story has been widely anthologized. I found it in Nebula Award Stories Number Two, 1967 - WA, 3 Dec 97]

   Hagan spread a tartan blanket on the wall and we sat down, feeling slightly self-conscious at having been translated from our city-oriented lives into a rural tableau. On the distant slate of the Loch, beyond the watchful frames of slow glass, a slow-moving steamer drew a white line towards the south. The boisterous mountain air seemed almost to invade our lungs, giving us more oxygen than we required.
   "I want you just to take a good look out toward Mull, Mr..."
   "Garland."
   "...Garland. That's what you're buying if you buy my glass, and it never looks better than it does at this minute. The glass is in perfect phase, none of it is less than ten years thick -- and a four foot window will cost you two hundred pounds."
   "Two hundred!" Selena was shocked. "That's as much as they charge at the Scenedow shop in Bond Street."
   Hagan smiled patiently, then looked closely at me to see if I knew enough about slow glass to appreciate what he had been saying. His price had been much higher than I had hoped -- but ten years thick! The cheap glass one found in places like the Vistaplex and Pane-o-rama stores usually consisted of a quarter inch of ordinary glass faced with a veneer of slow glass perhaps only ten or twelve months thick.

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