From Saturday, by Ian McEwan

With eyes closed he sees the newspaper offices. The curled edged, coffee stained carpet tiles; the ferocious heating system that bleeds boiling rusty water; the receding phalanxes of florescent lights illuminating the chaotic corners; the piles of paper that no one touches for no one cares to know what they contain--what they are for--and the over inhabited desks pushed too close together. It’s the spirit of the school art room. Everyone too hard pressed to start sorting through the old dust heaps.

The hospital is the same. Rooms full of junk; cupboards and filing cabinets that no one dares open; ancient equipment in cream, tin plate housing, too heavy, too mysterious to eject. Sick buildings in use for too long that only demolition can cure. Cities and states beyond repair, the whole world resembling [his son’s] bedroom. A race of extraterrestrial grown-ups is needed to set right the general disorder then put everyone to bed for an early night.

God was once supposed to be a grown up. But in disputes He childishly took sides. Then sending us an actual child, one of His own--the last thing we needed, a spinning rock already swarming with orphans.