 What does the falling glass symbolize?
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. "It's like this, MacBride. 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. 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. He watched as they spun and flashed in the darkness, and then set them for seven o'clock in the evening, April seventh, any year. Or, as Fownes hoped it might appear, the illusion of the domed city vanished and was replaced by a more satisfactory, and, for his specific purpose, more functional, illusion. The sun and moon both looked down upon a garden that was itself scintillant, composed largely of neon roses. He went up the stairs to the bedroom closet and tried the rain-maker, thinking roguishly: Thou shalt not inundate. A shower fell gently on the garden and a male chorus began to chant Singing in the Rain . Undiminished, the yellow moon and the red sun continued to be brilliant, although the sun occasionally arced over and demolished several of the neon roses. Far below in the cellar there was a rumble and then the soft whistle of winds came to him. The moon fell on the garden and rolled ponderously along, crooning When the Blue of the Night Meets the Gold of the Day .
 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