First, picture Washington, D.C. Got it? The Capital Dome, the White House, the Washington Monument, maybe some memorials; if you’re a bit of a nut like me, maybe some of the museums, or the Mall, or the Reflecting Pool. Now hold onto that image for a moment.

Have you ever seen those kids’ toys that are a set of (thankfully dull) pins set in a frame, so that an object pressed into one side of the pins is modeled by those displaced pins on the other side? Imagine Washington, D.C. as a pin model.

Now imagine it made of glass.

Add one final image: a huge smoked glass arch that spans most of the city.

Welcome to Glass Washington. The memorials are faceless, the Washington Monument has eyes, and strange burrowing creatures snake through what in our world are the Metro tunnels. The city itself is devoid of almost everything save for famous landmarks and touristy sites; the wider world is almost nonexistant. If you brave the rose- and tree-covered wilderness beyond the River, you may make it to the wraith-haunted fields of an otherworldly Arlington Cemetery, with its mirror-bright and perfectly blank headstones.

But if you stay in Glass Washington (which you should), climb the Arch. Then look down, and see the great mosaic of the lights laid out before you in patterns of sun and shadow, and grow wise.

Or go mad. It’s your choice.