The Floodplain
The morning light came through the archive windows at an angle that made the dust visible, each particle turning slowly above the maps.
Clara unfolded the survey sheet along its oldest crease. The river on the page was not the river outside. It bent farther east, through streets that had never known water.
The map remembers every course the city asked the river to forget.
She marked the discrepancy in the margin, then looked toward the floodplain.