Mini Story, Mystery, Photo Prompt

Secrets

Nancy's Notes 🖊️♬

This image of switchboard operators
on Dan Antion’s No Facilities site
caught my eye and interested me
enough to write a story. And here it is.

Image courtesy of Dan Antion @ No Facilities
Please take a moment to check out his amazing photos

Dotty’s hand freezes mid-plug. Through the crackling line, a man’s voice trembles: “Bring the money to the boathouse. Midnight. Come alone.”

She shouldn’t be listening. Seven years at the switchboard, she’s heard proposals, affairs, arguments over money. But this …. the deliberate coldness, the woman’s sharp intake of breath …. this is different.

“And if I bring the police?” the woman asks.

A pause. “Then your sister stays at the bottom of the lake.”

Dotty’s supervisor walks past, and she forces her fingers to move, connecting calls on autopilot. The women around her plug and unplug, oblivious. She scribbles an address on her notepad …. something about “the old Hinterland estate.”

Her shift ends at eleven …. one hour to decide if she believes in heroes, or if some secrets are meant to stay secret.

NAR©2026

This is “Telephone Line” by ELO

Starting with Inventions — CFFC

All rights reserved for Nancy Richy and are not to be used without permission. NAR©2017-present.

42 thoughts on “Secrets”

      1. Oh, Nancy…one of the earliest calls I received (this was in a department store) was a woman asking for ‘Foundation Department.’ Well, hell. I had moved down here to FL from NJ and foundation was always the basement or lower part of the house. So I said, ‘Cement and outdoors?’ The caller was very incensed and said, “No! Bras and girdles!” Well, I never…😧 If she had reported me to the store manager, I knew he would have gotten a kick out of that. I was their ‘new Yankee employee’ who was teased about everything!

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