Yevgeny Zamyatin — We [1199]

And, like disorderly fragments of a once harmonious, great Machine, they poured down, to the elevators, the stairs: steps, thumping, parts of words-like pieces of a torn letter swept by the wind… — Yevgeny Zamyatin, We, 1199

Note

A stunning dystopian simile that reduces the massive collective breakdown to the literal detritus of a bureaucratic language system.