A single thoughtless act is the undoing of Tom Brodzinski in Will Self's The Butt: He flicks a cigarette end off a hotel balcony: "The butt had described its parabola and hit its target, creating a minor entry wound, a tiny blister. But oh, the exit wound! The massive, gaping and bloody exit wound, through which the butt had sped on, fragmenting into scores of smaller butts, which were now hitting his children, his wife, and causing terrible collateral damage." Brodzinski is on

—Will Wiles