Why Ms Petersen didn't at first notice her toilet window image
March 30, 2005 Edition 1
John Scott
Nobody can blame Remona Petersen for getting excited when an image of Jesus appeared on the toilet window of her council flat in Lavender Hill.
Hundreds of neighbours besieged her home, all anxious to get into the toilet and see the image, while a family member stood guard at the front door with a whip, in case things got out of hand.
Now it has been discovered that all frosted glass of the same make, whose manufacture was discontinued 20 years ago, produces a similar image with back lighting. Cynics have asked why Ms Petersen noticed the phenomenon only last week.
I can explain. As a general rule, when you use a toilet, you sit with your back to the window, facing the door. If you study anything while you are busy, it is the door itself and the floor pattern. I can still remember the floor pattern of our family toilet when I was a boy.
Streaks of green were mixed in with the cement screed, and standing out quite clearly (at least to me) was a Medieval warrior in armour. I examined him intently during innumerable visits. I also looked for other images, but found nothing as realistic and certainly no religious figures.
I hardly gave the frosted-glass window a glance, preoccupied as I was afterwards with the flushing lever and other matters. Jesus could have been there all the time without my noticing, either.
But the whole episode has raised the question of signs in our daily lives. Should we not look closely at our wall stains and rising damp, in case there are messages for us therein, besides the need to call in a painter?
I also have a clear quartz crystal in which I can distinctly see a church, and am wondering if this means I should attend one more often, which is probably a better way to focus on Jesus than looking for him in toilet windows.
Quite apart from their religious possibilities, some toilets are worth visiting for their own sake. The old City and Civil Service Club building in Queen Victoria Street had exquisite marble toilets in the basement. It was almost a shame to do in them what you had to do.
And, almost opposite the club, the public convenience is a declared national monument. Visitors are ushered into our hall toilet even if they don't need to go. Sometimes as many as four squeeze in at one time, inspecting our picture gallery which includes a mounted Cape Times front page, an oil painting of mine that is so gloomy my wife said there was only one place for it, and 35 family photographs.
If that were not enough to distract their attention, occupiers can while away the time browsing through the most appropriate reading matter I could find, Peter Moore's backpacker guide No Sh... ing in the Toilet. I doubt if they'd spot even the Archangel Gabriel peering in at the window.
