On the morning the river ran backwards, no one thought to write it down. Writing things down had been prohibited for twenty years. The Council believed records caused disagreements. Without records, there could be no arguments about what had happened before. The town became peaceful. It also became very strange. Birthdays moved. Debts vanished. Marriages occasionally became uncertain. But nobody complained. Complaints required proving that yesterday had been different. Then the river reversed. The Council announced it had always flowed towards the mountains. Everyone nodded. Except twelve-year-old Elsie. “No, it didn't.” Her mother grabbed her hand. “Don't.” “I remember.” That evening, Elsie sneaked into the abandoned schoolhouse and found something hidden beneath the floorboards. Sheet music. Hundreds of pages. Before records were banned, the town had possessed an orchestra famous across the country. One composition appeared repeatedly. The River Symphony. Every copy contained the same peculiar blank space. Elsie gathered the oldest musicians. Most claimed they had forgotten how to play. Their hands remembered. At sunrise, they assembled beside the river. The Council ordered them to stop. They played anyway. As the melody rose, memories returned. Birthdays. Promises. Deaths. Love affairs. Mistakes. Truths carefully forgotten. Then came the blank bar. Silence fell. In that silence, everyone remembered the river flowing towards the sea. And so it did. The Council resigned before lunch. That evening, people began writing things down again. The orchestra finally agreed the missing note had been there all along.