MASH Magazine Issue 2 | Page 6

The Technician Has
Eyes Of Deepest Blue

Contents

The technician has eyes of deepest blue.

EDITOR’S NOTE IN 500 WORDS

Writer’s World
on the

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I notice them as she leans over me. Feel her brush against
my cheek, the crimson flush rising on the surface of my skin.

Towards a radio blaring in some corner of the room. Fervent
voices raised in argument.

“Just a tiny prick, okay?” she says.

“In a healthy democracy there would be space for all
opinions to be considered.”

I nod “Uh-huh” but I am already lost, remembering a deeper
blue I saw once.

And I nod.

“You’ll see stars soon” she smiles.

“Uh-huh. Uh-huh.”

At least I think that’s what she says.
“What a peculiar thing for a dentist to say”, the last thought
I have.

Even though I understand now, that those voices are so
ti ny in the dark, are so easily lost amid the blue, where it
is deepest.

Because I fall then, into the blue. Spiralling down towards
the centre of something.

She leans towards me, and there is something there, some
hint of something. Concern?

And there are stars.

“Mr Andrews? Hello there!”

In the deep blue, as it turns to black, I catch sight of them as
I spin in the centre of a pinwheel.

“Cassiopeia” I say to her.
She laughs “It’ll take a while for the anaesthetic to wear off.”

Mythical names I have long forgotten, names I can never
recall at will, suddenly known, all their strangeness lost.

And if I could reach out towards her, if I could touch her, I
would.

Cassiopeia. Circinus. Pegasus. Andromeda.

But she steps aside and seems to disintegrate into the
white, white light of the room.

Galaxies and constellations in a universe that is infinite.
And I had not known it was possible to feel it. To feel the
expansion into … well, into what exactly? Infinity?

Which spins a little still, and
makes my head throb.

It spins. Or so it feels. Generating a force that pushes
everything outwards into the blue.

In the corner the radio plays
on. A happy tune that dances
towards the stars.

And I float on with it.

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The loneliness of the short story writer
Why Mash Stories believes in feedback

The Technician HasEyes Of Deepest
Blue

Mash Competition’s winning story
The Missing Links by Toirdealbhach
Lionáird

First Runner Up
Colonial Dentistry by Bryan Lawver

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Second Runner Up
The Cleansing by Dylan Gonzalez

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Roots by Alyson Hilbourne

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(Un)happy Things by Ellie Strong

Then upwards into a dazzle of white, the colours splintering
in a spectrum flash.

Power by Ros Collins

Planet eBook

The Appointment by Susan Bianculli

Siege by Sean Fagan

The Dentist’s Chair by Michael E A Lyons

She pulls me up into the light towards a garble of voices and
chattering and sound.

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SourceBottle PR

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INTEGRITY:
Become the author of your life

This story is written by one of the members of
the MASH jury, Jennifer Harvey, for the second
MASH competition as a sample story. The
keywords for this competition were:
Andromeda, democracy, dentist.

“Mr Andrews? Mr Andrews?”
“Uh-huh…. Uh-huh…”

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Published by IMODERNA Publishing
Limited, England.
Designed by Liviu Iancu.
All rights reserved by
Mash Stories © March 2014.

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