Between Two Words

Episode 2: Emily's Response

Feb 07, 2026

Between Two Words:

Episode 2: Emily’s Response

After classes had finished for the day, Emily waited until the school was quiet. She walked steadily to the principal’s office. Her precious parcel in tucked safely in her purse. She used her father’s key to open the secretary’s door adjacent to the main office. She looked behind her checking the hallway to make sure everything was clear. She felt like a thief, her conscious nagging at her. She knew to keep her correspondence secret. First, her parents would demand the end of it, secondly if it were found out, her reputation would be irrevocably tainted.

When she was certain she was alone, she entered the office locking the door behind her. She carefully unlocked the cabinet with the Dictaphone. She checked the door one more time. Satisfied she was alone; she took out her parcel and carefully opened the small brown paper wrapped box.

The Dictaphone waited on the cabinet shelf, a bulky rectangle of machinery in an ugly battleship grey, with a heavy recording arm, its round metal mouth like a blind eye. Emily lifted the machine, grunting under the weight of its substantial transformer and motor, and set it on the blotter with a soft thud. She plugged the cord into the socket on the desk’s side, the act making her feel excited and dangerous. She reverently picked up her package. Her fingers, steady despite the pulse in her throat, untied the string and folded back the crisp brown paper, revealing a box that had once held her mother’s good stationery.

Nestled inside was the dictation belt, a thin, endless loop of dark blue plastic, about the width of two fingers. It was coiled upon itself. She carefully lifted the loop, letting it unravel slightly, and saw the faint, shiny tracks where the stylus had pressed its secrets into the plastic.

Now, for the machine. On the right side of the Dictaphone’s case, she found the raised hub, the take-up spool. Just left of it was the empty supply spool.

Her instructions from the secretary had been precise. She guided the belt’s free end over a series of small, guiding posts. She worked slowly first the idler wheel, then around the capstan, the brass drive shaft that would move it. With a careful click, she seated the loop onto the supply spool, then stretched the belt across the machine’s bed, engaging it with the teeth of the drive sprocket, before finally securing the end onto the take-up spool. It formed a neat, taut rectangle of blue plastic over the machine’s heart.

She gently swung the heavy recording arm up and back on its hinge, revealing a smaller, sleek playback arm tucked beneath it. This one ended in a small, sensitive soundbox and a lightweight needle. She lowered this playback arm until the needle’s tip rested gently in the groove of the blue belt. A slight adjustment of the volume wheel on the side, and she was ready.

Her hand hovered over the control lever. It had three positions: STOP, FORWARD, and REVERSE. She slid it to FORWARD.

With a warm hum, the motor engaged. The capstan began to turn, pulling the blue belt in a smooth, journey under the needle. For a second, there was only the soft hiss of empty plastic... and then, a voice, one she had longed to hear, filled the intimate silence of her stolen sanctuary.

“Oh bugger.
What’s happened now?
That should have started it.
Bloody new devices.

Ahh. Here we go…

Hello Dearest Emily,”

Emily smiled and leaned closer as if he were here in the room talking to her.

=======================Start of Second Message=====================

你好哈罗德，

你好吗？我很好，我特别想你。对不起，我忘了，我会说英文。

It’s Emily. I’m well…or as well as I can be here, though I think of London often. Forgive me, I should speak English. It’s safer that way, for you. Please keep practicing, won’t you? It would break my heart if you lost your grasp of the language. It’s one of the last threads between us.

I received your message yesterday. It has been nearly two months since my first message. Hearing your words again was like you were in the room with me. So real, so close. I can’t describe how much I’ve missed your voice. No one here talks to me, not really. Not about things that matter. Sometimes I ache for a real conversation, about history, books, ideas… anything other than the endless talk of when I’ll marry.

It pained me to hear that you aren’t eating well. I suppose English food is rather… faithful to its own tradition. So much boiling. So little surprise. I imagine you miss what you used to call my “exotic little experiments.” Even my mother complains my cooking has grown poor. She says I must learn to run a household, and soon. You remember how my parents opposed my studying abroad. If not for my grandmother, we would never have met.

Is your work very hard? Your voice sounded frustrated in your message. Are the standards and requirements too much? I know the pay is not much. Are you coping? I fear we are in an age where our performance depends solely on the will of the children we teach. I rarely have to discipline my students. They are quite respectable. Not one will misbehave. The thought of the ruler to palms stops the action immediately. I only have to pick it up and they settle . I still don’t like mathematics. We just finished short division, and are moving on to fractions, one of my least favorite topics.

On a more personal note, if I may share with you, my mother fears I won’t make a proper wife. She says women shouldn’t work, that if I wait too long, no one will want me. Sometimes I feel she’d rather see me caged than free. Like a portrait in a boudoir, polished and still. It’s a miserable thought. And here I am, filling this tape with complaints. But you always listened. You always understood. I think that’s what I miss most…being heard. I did not know I was a possession to be wanted. I don’t want to be.

I have found it difficult to keep up with the standards required of teachers and being a single woman. So many restrictions, so many things I cannot do for fear my reputation will be ruined and I will not be able to respectfully marry. It feels so restrictive. I know it is proper and the standards are required in our society, but I so want to be in the park with you. Barefoot in the park, on one of the few warm days…reading poetry under a tree eating sweets and dreaming of books we would write. Needless to say, I cannot go barefoot here anywhere, not even at home.

There’s little else to report. My health is good. The weather is fine. I eat, I sleep, I walk through days that feel much the same.

And though it may be improper to say, I miss you. Truly.

Sincerely,

Emily

Thank you so very much for reading, we appreciate your time. Many Blessings!

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