 What does the falling glass symbolize?
A FALL OF GLASS By STANLEY R. LEE Illustrated by DILLON [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Magazine October 1960. The sun was a flaming orange ball in a cloudless blue sky. But he was thinking about weather, which was an unusual subject to begin with for a person living in a domed city. In the ensuing contretemps they emptied his rear pants pockets, got his wristwatch and restored the contents of the handkerchief pocket. It fell on the streets and houses, making small geysers of shiny mist, hitting with a gentle musical sound, like the ephemeral droppings of a celesta. It was precipitation peculiar to a dome: feather-light fragments showering harmlessly on the city from time to time. Dome weevils, their metal arms reaching out with molten glass, roamed the huge casserole, ceaselessly patching and repairing. It was this rather than skill that enabled the police to maintain such a tight surveillance on him, a surveillance that went to the extent of getting his fingerprints off the postman's bag, and which photographed, X-rayed and chemically analyzed the contents of his pockets before returning them. Conformity had become more than a social force; it was a physical necessity. He came to see that genuine quirks were rare and, as time went on, due partly to his own small efforts, rarer. "It's like this, MacBride. Winds like you and I can't imagine. And if there was a house sitting on such a mountain and if winds did blow, it would shake exactly the way that one does. A falling piece of glass dissolved into a puff of gossamer against the windshield. "You're starting to see flying houses, hear loud babbling voices. You've got winds in your brain, Lanfierre, breezes of fatigue, zephyrs of irrationality—" At that moment, all at once, every last window in the house slammed shut. It rocked from side to side, it pitched forward and back, it yawed and dipped and twisted, straining at the mooring of its foundation. The house could have been preparing to take off and sail down the.... It expressed his weariness and distaste for people who went off and got neurotic when they could be enjoying a happy, normal existence. every now and then their eyes widened as the house danced a new step. Fownes stopped on the porch to brush the plaster of paris off his shoes. At least, he called it buffeting; he'd never thought to watch from outside.
 The cracking of an illusion of safety and optimal conditions in a chaotic world inhabited by humans bent on self-destruction
 The importance of bucking authority and tradition in order to identify solutions for problems that plague communities all over the globe  The delicate balance that countries -- large and small, developed and developing -- must strike if they are to preserve Earth's natural resources  The deterioration of boundaries between members of different races, genders, social classes, and religious factions  The cracking of an illusion of safety and optimal conditions in a chaotic world inhabited by humans bent on self-destruction