About

The parafix /’pʌrʌfɪx’/ is an archaic predecessor of the taser, its first documented use appearing in Northern European audio-visual records from the 1980s. In appearance, it resembles the common umbrella: a device consisting of a circular canopy of cloth on a folding metal frame supported by a central rod, used as protection against rain. But in function, the parafix is markedly different. Designed to transfix and temporarily incapacitate objects by emitting blue-light rays, it renders the specimen petrified and dazed in a twilight of uncertain dimensions. The technology is lauded by …