Lord of the Flies

by William Golding

Now the absurd situation was open, Jack blushed too. He began to mutter vaguely. “You rub two sticks. You rub—” He glanced at Ralph, who blurted out the last confession of incompetence. “Has anyone got any matches?”

The rock struck Piggy a glancing blow from chin to knee; the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist.

Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy.