Scholastic Award Winner: Still by Emmeline (G9) Still Silver Key in Flash Fiction By EmmelineGrade 9 Enjoy this thrilling flash fiction piece, writing by 9th grade VSA student during our 2025 Scholastic Writing Workshop, which earned a Silver Key in the 2026 Scholastic Reading and Writing Awards. For more information about our Scholastic Writing Workshop, click here. Everyone blinks. It’s one of those simple facts you never think about. Like gravity. Like time. It’s one of those things everyone can do. As one of the autonomic functions of the body—processes that occur subconsciously—everyone blinks, just like how everyone breathes without conscious thought. But I don’t. I was born without that reflex. Some neurological quirk—rare, inexplicable, abnormal. My eyes don’t dry out the way others do. “No impact on quality of life,” the doctor reassured. My mother disagreed. She sat me down at the age of four, gently cupping my pouting face with her soft and lightly floral lotion-covered hands. “People notice what’s different. And they fear it. So you have to blend in.” She taught me how to simulate it with light eye squeezes, timed downward glances, and micro-movements. At first, I squeezed too hard or simply forgot to. But I practiced in front of the mirror until I squeezed just enough, until remembering to blink became a habit. I learned to watch people the way actors study roles. I kept perfecting my blinks until my mimicry passed. Before anyone could look twice. Years passed. School. Homework. Life. A quiet, unremarkable existence. My pretending worked. It always worked. Until her. ~ It was a sweltering Sunday afternoon. In stark contrast, the underground station was a place of artificial coolness. The stale air conditioning overcompensated for the blaze outside, making it almost too chilly, like stepping into a refrigerated crypt. There seemed to be no distinction between heat relief and frostbite. Fluorescent lights blinked faintly overhead, casting a dim glow on uneven walls and concrete floors. The station hummed with the distant clatter of trains and occasional echoing footsteps. I was on the train scheduled to leave at 4:07 pm. As the doors yawned open, I took my pick of a seat beside the window. I had my hood on, hands stuffed in pockets, and earbuds not to play anything, but to act as a barrier—an excuse not to have to converse with someone. In reality, I was scanning faces like I always do. Habit. Defense. That’s when I saw her. Swiftly, elegantly, she opted for the seat just across from me. Cross-legged. Beige coat. No phone. No distractions. Just… still. Completely, but disturbingly, unmoving. Her steel silver eyes locked on mine. She wasn’t blinking. I stiffened and stopped faking. Five seconds. Ten. Just long enough to know. She tilted her head, hiding a shadow of a smile almost imperceptibly. “You’re tired of pretending,” she mouthed. Not a question. Just the truth. No one looked up. No one reacted. The world moved around us—the swaying train that had just begun making its way to its destination, the metal screech of wheels against the rusted track, station lights smearing past the windows like watercolors bleeding across wet paper—but the moment stayed still. Amidst the rocking and noise of the outside world, she sat calmly inside it, as if stillness was her native language. I couldn’t answer verbally. But she didn’t need me to. A slight, stiff nod was enough. When the train halted at the following stop, she promptly stood and disappeared like a breeze. I never saw her again. ~ But… I started noticing others. At the lunch line: a boy who blinked too flawlessly, exactly every eight seconds, rhythmically mechanical, like clockwork. His eyes were a pale, unsettling blue, glassy and frozen over, as if someone had polished them too clean. They didn’t scan or shift, just stared ahead at nothing in particular, empty of thought, but full of precision. At the library: a woman who mirrored my every breath and every fake blink, beat for beat. Her eyes were a dark, bottomless green that seemed to reflect more than they revealed. There was a sheen to them, like when sunlight hits water. And though her lips stretched out into a somewhat shaky smile, her gaze never wavered, like she was waiting for a cue. At the bus stop: a kid who didn’t blink once, even in the wind. His eyes, reminiscent of milk chocolate, were wide—too wide—like twin marbles fixed in place. Gusts whipped around him, dust flicking past his lashes, but nothing moved. Not even a flinch. Just that silent, unbroken stare, as if blinking was something he’d never learned to do. We’re scattered, I think. Spread out. Wary of ourselves through perfectly timed blinks. Each one of them just like me. Each one of them aware of the one peculiarity that sets themselves apart from everyone “normal.” I wasn’t alone. Maybe I never was, and I’d just never looked the right way before. I was too caught up with trying to blend in that I never managed to notice those who stood out. ~ Last night, I stood in front of the mirror without faking it. Just my deep brown eyes: dark umber, like rich, earthy soil after rain, staring back at me, steady and unflinching. And I wondered, but not for the first time, what it would be like to stop pretending altogether. To live fully as I am, unmasked, unafraid, and unblinking. I hesitated before leaning in closer to my reflection, searching for any kind of proof or permission. Then I saw it—not something unnatural—just a soft flicker of something else. Recognition. A stillness I didn’t have to hide from. ~ This morning, I didn’t blink at all. No one noticed. Maybe someone did, but they didn’t point it out. And when I locked my still, unblinking eyes with someone else’s across the classroom, that person smiled first.
