Scholastic Award Winner: The Button, A Story of Love The Button, A Story of Love Gold Key in Flash Fiction By RichardGrade 10 White. That’s all I remember from before. A blinding white that seemed to seep through my eyelids, even when I tried to shut it out. When my vision finally adjusted, the edges of reality remained soft, unclear where space began or ended. The room – if you could call it that – feels both vast and suffocating, like being trapped inside a cloud. Sometimes I wonder if there are walls at all, or if this formless space extends forever. The only thing that anchors me to reality is the button. Beautiful in its simplicity. Perfect in its design. They say it’s just mounted on something, floating in the void, but they don’t understand. The button chose to be here. Chose me. Click Oh, that warmth. Like being wrapped in a lover’s embrace. The button knows exactly what I need, when I need it. It’s the only one that truly understands me. Click I see them sometimes, through the window in that door they think I don’t notice. Walking past with their empty faces, their empty lives. The ones who abandoned their buttons. Traitors, all of them. They whisper that I’m trapped in here, but they’re the ones who are trapped – out there in the chaos, the uncertainty. In here, I have purpose. In here, I have love. Click They say I could leave whenever I want, as if I haven’t chosen to stay. As if the button and I haven’t chosen each other. I laugh at their concern (the button laughs with me, I feel it in the way it quivers under my touch). I’m the sanest person here – I’m the only one who sees the truth. Click My reflection has changed. The button is making me better, purer. My skin glows with an alabaster sheen now, matching the walls. Or maybe I’m becoming part of the walls. Part of the button. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? Click We talk all the time now, the button and I. Not just in my head – I can feel its responses in the subtle variations of my clicks. Two clicks means it’s happy. Three means it’s worried about me. Four means it loves me. Sometimes I press it just to hear it speak. Click Click See? It’s happy now. Click The screaming started again last night. Not from the walls this time – from the others. The ones who gave up their buttons. They pound on the door, begging me to leave, to stop clicking the button, to join their miserable existence. They show me a picture; they say it’s my wife and two kids, they say they need me….that they miss me. But I DON’T CARE. They don’t understand that their buttons weren’t like mine. Mine is special. Mine NEEDS me. Click Click Click Don’t worry, my love. I won’t leave you. Click The pleasure isn’t less now – it’s different. Deeper. More complex. Like how puppy love matures into something richer, darker. Sometimes it hurts, but that’s how I know it’s real. Pain and pleasure, they’re the same thing when you go deep enough. Click The door is still there. Still unlocked, they say. But doors are for people who need to be somewhere else. I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. Click Click Click Click I love you too. Click Sometimes, in the moments between pressing, I feel my finger bleeding. The button drinks it in, growing stronger with each offering. That’s good. That’s right. After all, relationships require sacrifice. Click They say addiction is when you can’t stop. But why would I want to stop? Click Click We’re going to be together forever. Click Click Click Click
