The Paper Wall

A censor smuggling coded messages through occupied France has to run her own escape line when the network she built is betrayed.

• WWII historical fiction from inside the censor's office
• A resistance courier hiding coded messages in plain mail
• A desperate race to the border after the network is betrayed

“Margot Lefevre had held her position at the Vireux-sur-Loire post office for two years before the Germans arrived, and had somehow, through a combination of unremarkable competence and the particular invisibility granted to quiet young women who kept their heads down, retained it for the year since — reassigned, along with three of her colleagues, to the newly created censor's desk in the back room, where every letter leaving the district was read, stamped, and occasionally seized before it ever reached the sorting bags. It was tedious work, mostly, hour after hour of other people's small domestic concerns — a mother worried about her son's cough, a farmer complaining about requisitioned grain, a young man's careful, coded declarations of love to a sweetheart three villages over.”

Format: Instant PDF download after purchase.

Length: A full short story — about 25–35 minutes to read.

Works on: Any device with a PDF reader — phone, tablet, e-reader, or computer.