Relationships - like delicate pieces of glass that adorn the mantle which I so carefully watch each day. The little ornament that once stood in the corner, the new addition that seemed to gleam in spite of the dull flickering light of the fire, now laid shattered on the carpeted floor a couple of feet below. Another, a more senior piece of this chess game, in the same fate? I vaguely remembered having polished the dusty rook weeks before.

A gust of wind? Or perhaps a work of the fabled thief who sows discord? They answer me not, as I gaze in pained silence.

Would time tell? Sometimes I really wonder.