Half a Roof Before Winter: A Survey of a World That Learned to Live With the Unfinished

My neighbor decided one autumn to fix his roof. He fixed exactly half. The other half could wait, he said, because it hadn’t rained yet. Ever since, I’ve read the world’s news like that roof. Everybody is patching something, propping it up with planks, slapping on tar, and almost nobody finishes the job. The world on October 27, 2026 is that very building: half a new roof, half a leaky one, and November banging on the window.