The fibre, its thin curls tinged with aquamarine, fit so elegantly in William's palm. The rough calluses he had incurred from years of imparting metals seemed to beckon for that string, every ounce of adhesion in his dehydrated epidermis clicking just so with the peeled lacquer. William gazed upon his linear plaything, head swimming, no longer capable of bearing the tension within its faithful inanimation. 

One fluid motion and the string's few inches were taut between his fingers. Another, and any minute claim the object may have possessed in that of its magnitude was lost in two. 

Now William screamed. He had resided in this hollow, unnaturally tall-roofed flat for but four months, up until that point, and yet never found himself accustomed to the constancy with which its searing echoes soared. Vocal cords shredding, larynx straining, voice exploding, and in an instant it was gone. Oxygen. The rage of anticipation persisted in his blood, but the gaseous medium with which his bellows swam proved limited. 

William gasped, as unfortunately and as pitifully as fish when they wish for nothing greater than Adam's ale. He was told he had to stop with that, or further would his throat distress, but to what end was his preservation even vaguely more than futile? Perception, anyway, was the only item for which he felt self-esteem, and then it was also the most painful of his attributes. The further humanity feared, the more Earth burned, the nearer and nearer war loomed, and the greater was this burden. 

Accordingly, as yet his only method of continuing to hold that burden was to lessen it in regression. So he became himself as evolution, whence human device made him an animal, so he screamed. And nothing would change, and he would realise this, and he would hug his desk and cower in his flat and gasp. 

So soon was his termination regardless. Anticlimactically would his story end, but then for all it would be; for when the inciting incident of any piece of literature occurs, as it necessarily must, there can be no action if its characters have already been killed. 

Contritely he thought of this, and briefly found comprehension of what was yet to be, incredibly sans migraine. Alas, poor William, that your gift should fail you, but in thanks, that when what all knew was to happen took place, the tension was lost to your eyes. 

Whistling came from outside his window. William raised his eyes and peered with disdain through the grimy glass, expecting his elderly neighbour to appear. A jaunty fellow he was, as well as a pianist, so whistling was in his nature, but, ah, where was he now, if not in the bunkers? 

The whistling became a siren, then cries of terror. The disgusting explosion of a shattered sound barrier. There was no more time for screams. Necessity had come and brilliantly usurped anticipation. William laughed himself a fool, and the fibre snapped.