[Intro]
[radio tuning, veranda ambience, distant birds]

[Spoken Word]
The radio said a thing this morning.
By lunchtime it was gone.

I argued with it, naturally.
I've never won.

[Verse 1]
A voice comes down the aerial,
already dressed as fact,
says this is known, and this is false,
and now we'll not come back.
The hour turns, the bulletin dies,
the present leaves the room —
a thousand little certainties
evaporate by noon.

[Pre-Chorus]
But first take notes.
Don't answer yet.
Keep the doubt.
Preserve the debt.

[Chorus]
Claims should have a future;
they create a record in the past.
You said it in the present —
now let's see how long it lasts.

Hypomnesis, keep the words,
the confidence, the doubt.
Anamnesis, bring them back.
Let's talk this through now.

[Verse 2]
Don't tell me yet if it was true.
That's not the first demand.
Tell me who was speaking,
tell me what they said,
and when.
Keep the hesitation,
keep the correction if it came,
keep the awkward little silence
on either side of certainty's name.

[Archival Voice]
Transcript confidence: ninety-seven percent.

[Male Vocal]
And keep the other three.

[Pre-Chorus]
Because memory can misremember,
and evidence can bend.
So let the record question
the record in the end.

[Chorus]
Claims should have a future;
they create a record in the past.
You said it in the present —
now let's see how long it lasts.

Hypomnesis, keep the words.
Don't tell me what they prove.
Anamnesis, ask again
when the world has had time to move.

[Bridge]
[beat fragments, overlapping archival voices]

[Archival Voice]
This is settled.

[Archival Voice]
There is no evidence.

[Archival Voice]
Experts agree.

[Archival Voice, degraded]
At the present time—

[Male Vocal]
Good.
At the present time.
That's something we can keep.

Not a truth engraved in granite,
not a lie condemned to sleep —
just a claim with date and provenance,
a footprint left in speech.

[Instrumental Break]
[granular radio fragments become rhythmic; acoustic guitar returns beneath]

[Verse 3]
Years from now an agent finds
a sentence in the silt:
not to prosecute the speaker,
not to vindicate the guilt,
but to place beside the old claim
what subsequently came to pass —
and ask the oldest little question:

[drop to near silence]

[Spoken Word]
What made you think that?

[Final Chorus]
Claims should have a future;
they create a record in the past.
Every confident assertion
gets another chance to ask:

What did we know?
What did we infer?
What changed beneath our feet?
What did we call misinformation
before the record was complete?

Hypomnesis, hold the thread.
Anamnesis, draw it through.
Memory isn't the answer.

[quietly]
It's how the question
gets another interview.

[Outro]
[acoustic guitar, distant radio, satin bowerbird calls]

[Spoken Word]
Meanwhile,
something is eating the avocados.

[radio clicks off]