location failure

 It is a warm, humid, morning. The shirt sticks to the skin, and the legs to the trousers. Pass the power station on the river, and walk along the gravel footpath to the next bridge, the one that continues  the main street over the river into the quarter of the town known as Nicola.

Cross the river there and, for a change, take the first left meaning to follow the river up to the next footbridge. The sky is featureless and grey with cloud, and the small street winds from side to side between the houses. This is an old part of town, not so grand as the rest of the old town. The pavement turns from tarmacadam road to a hardcore footpath, curving along between hedges. Then it turns into a well made tarred pavement again and follows the river, Do not think, just follow the path, the river to the left. 

The headache that has been there since leaving the house to climb out of the valley via the footpath in the park, to pass the enclosure with the birds and then to go back into town again has intensified. It is irritating. Look at the river.

This is where it suddenly becomes apparent that the river is flowing the wrong way. This is ridiculous. There is no tidal force in central Europe that will make rivers flow in the wrong direction. Walk on, unclear as to what happened now. Was there a mental blackout? 

Proceed, and it becomes apparent that this is not the main river, but the smaller one, the one that will be filled in case of flooding. It is quite full now, but the path is still useable. It is slightly surreal, an area of town not normally visited, and the grey light robbing every sense of direction. 

Then everything pops back into familiarity. It is still unclear how it was possible to arrive here, but this is close to the bridge crossed earlier.

It is much later, and with the help of a map, that it is possible to see that the small path doubled back almost completely, and the high level of water in the small river completed the illusion. 

Instead of just following the main river to the end of the island, it had crossed the island and followed the small river in the opposite direction.

Not the river had changed direction, the human was inattentive and had no sense of direction.