14 May 2026
I swear
it happened—
just not
in this universe.
Yesterday,
the cereal mascot
winked
with the other eye.
Proof,
obviously,
that timelines
shuffle
like cheap cards.
People say
I misremember.
Cute.
As if
my brain
would ever
get things wrong.
No—
Reality
is the one
that keeps
glitching.
I mean,
why trust memory
when you can trust
a cosmic typo.
So suddenly
it appears in
my Facebook
feed as if it
has always been
part of nature
as if it always
made its presence
known in all the years
of nature shows
I've been watching
surely a monstrous
bird that eats baby
alligators
and kills its brothers
and sisters is worthy
of a one hour
documentary
but no it's as if
it crossed a border
into my timeline
or did I cross
into its like my
brother remembers
the news telling
him about Nelson
Mandela* dying
in his prison cell
never to become
President of South
Africa at all
or shredding
Apartheid apart
is it all really
just illusion
and reality
just a figment
of time and space
depending upon
quantum physics
and whichever string
controls the puppet.
*The Mandela Effect occurs when a group of people collectively misremember an image, event or other artifacts of pop culture like movies, books or television.
Paranormal researcher and author Fiona Broome conceptualized the effect after discovering that she and others possessed strong, yet false, memories about the death of South African anti-apartheid activist while in prison during the 1980s.
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