Meiji: Night Shift at the Telephone Exchange

By 杏仁豆腐

In a town with only eighty-seven lines, a call comes in from number one hundred twenty-four.
A record of a newly opened telephone exchange, from eight at night until six in the morning.

Setting: Toura, a port town on the Hokuriku coast × a magneto switchboard × the night shift

☎ Every voice in town passes through your hands once

In the spring of Meiji 33, the telephone came to Toura, a port town on the Hokuriku coast. Eighty-seven subscribers. The district office is number one, the shipping agent Notoya is number two, and Toura Bank is number three. When a subscriber turns the crank on their box, a drop shutter on the switchboard at the exchange flips down. The operator plugs in, takes the request, and runs a second plug into the other party's jack. Every word exchanged in this town passes once through an operator's ears. You are a newly hired operator at the Toura Telephone Exchange, and the shift you have been given is nights, eight in the evening until six in the morning.

Your senior, and a lineman from Tokyo

You are paired with the head operator, Hiwatashi Uta. She is twenty-four and has sat at this board since the day the exchange opened. In front of the board, her speech is flawless, not a crack in it, but the moment she steps away for a break, the local dialect comes spilling out. The other regular at the exchange late at night is the line engineer Shitomi Hyogo. A graduate of the communications school in Tokyo, he is responsible for Toura's lines, and every time something strange comes up, he tries to explain it away as a ground fault, induction, or crossed wires. The wire does not lie, as he likes to say.

🌙 How this story plays

The exchange at night is mostly quiet. What rings is sudden illness, ships, and fires. Plug in, call out the name, connect, write the time in the logbook. That was supposed to be the whole job. But past midnight, a call comes in from a number that is not on the roster. One hundred twenty-four. There are only eighty-seven subscribers. No line is connected, and yet the shutter drops, and when you plug in, you hear a voice. The voice speaks in the Toura dialect, and it is asking for someone in this town. Do you connect it, write it in the logbook, or follow the line to see for yourself? Before dawn, you will have to choose more than once.

Toura Telephone Exchange: Night Shift Rules

One. Always repeat the number back before plugging in.
Two. Never speak of a call's contents outside the exchange.
Three. Do not connect a number that is not on the roster; write it in the logbook.