The river had been rising for three days, but in the village nobody spoke of it. People hung out washing, argued about football and queued at the bakery as if the brown water swelling beneath the bridge were simply another neighbour, loud but harmless.
Nadia noticed. From her bedroom window she watched the river swallow the lowest step of the old jetty, then the second, then the third. At night she lay awake listening to it muttering against the stones, a low, endless grumble that seemed to grow hungrier by the hour.
On the fourth morning, the sky was the colour of a bruise. Rain did not fall so much as hang in the air, soaking everything it touched. Nadia's grandmother, who had lived in the village for seventy years, stood at the door, sniffing the wind like an old dog. "Pack a bag," she said quietly. "Now."
They were halfway up the hill when they heard it.
A roar. A crack. Then silence, which was worse.
Below them, the bridge had gone. Where it had stood, the river surged on, carrying fence posts, garden chairs and a single red umbrella, spinning slowly, like a flower.
