FICTION FRIDAY – The Broken Window Theory
Dad reads aloud from behind the paper while we’re having dessert on Thursday evening. “A building with a broken window that has been left unrepaired will give the appearance that no one cares and no one is in charge.”
My brother and I exchange glances, knowing errant tennis balls and footballs or a book thrown in jest, have cracked a fair share of windows. We copped a hiding for it but the windows were repaired eventually. Sometimes the masking tape dried out and the makeshift cardboard panel fell off.
The irony is this: Dad was an architect of anger. He built a house out of the rigidity of his beliefs. Brick pylons to support a history of resentment and frustration. It was a constant. It formed the floorboards and plasterboard walls, laced with asbestos. Hence, there were constant broken windows, the cracking of his self and his spirit which made it hard to write on the glass after fogging it up with your breath.
A Fullness in Brevity - Adam Byatt 