The Mandela Effect

Ch. 13

 Jon and his grandmother move away from the shrine wall and back towards the kitchen.

Jon leans against the wall between the kitchen and the living room, watching his grandmother carefully prepare the tea.

"Sugar?" she asks, "Milk?"

"Both, please," Jon answers.

She turns to him with his cup, atop a saucer, and hands it to him. He waits for her to finish her cup and try it before taking a sip of his own. There's a moment of silence before she speaks.

"I know what you're thinking," she says.

"Hmm?" Jon mumbles.

"I'm not misremembering," his grandmother continues, "I know the picture exists."

"I believe you," Jon says looking out over his cup towards her.

She rolls her eyes at him, "I hear that tone. I won't have that tone in my house."

Jon chuckles, "There's no tone Ugogo, I promise."

"You know the last time..." his grandmother starts but trails off at the end. She takes a big swig of the cup and puts it down. She moves quickly back towards the bedroom.

Jon takes another sip of his tea and watches her go. He's confused about what's happening.

His grandmother is gone only a minute before she calls out, "Jongikhaya, come here!"

Jon gulps down the last of his tea and sets the cup and saucer on the counter. He turns and walks back towards the bedroom.

As he rounds the corner, he finds his grandmother standing along the far wall. She is smiling from ear to ear and holding a white, porcelain picture frame. As Jon enters, she looks up and him and clutches the frame to her chest.

"I know you probably thought I was crazy," she says with a smirk, "but a picture is worth a thousand words."

Jon raises an eyebrow and steps forward. He reaches out towards her and she hands him the frame. As Jon turns it around, the picture inside comes into focus for him.

Suddenly, the world goes quiet. He can hear his own breathing, his heartbeat, even the blood pumping through his veins. He realizes that his breath is becoming shorter and shorter. He's taking gasps instead of breaths.

There's a sound. Something that seems very far off. Jon can't identify it.

Jon's vision is starting to narrow. It starts at the periphery but as he continues to stare at the image, the blackness at the edges moves further and further in until he can't see anything outside of the bright, white frame.

The far-off sound becomes a voice. Like someone shouting at him from the other end of a long tunnel.

Something comes over him, a feeling he's never had before. The floor seems to be wobbling beneath him. The ceiling feels like its pressing down on him. He feels like he's on the edge of a building leaning out into the void.

"Jon!" his grandmother's voice brings him back to the present.

"Yea, Ugogo," Jon answers her.

"Are you ok?" she asks.

Jon looks up at her. Her face shows genuine concern.

"You've gone pale and you weren't answering me," his grandmother says.

Jon sighs, "Yes, I'm fine."

Jon looks down into his hands. The picture, a color Polaroid, surrounded by an elegant, white, porcelain frame; is of he and the woman who would have been his wife had she survived.

But somehow, inexplicably, here they are: he in a tuxedo and she in the wedding dress that she never got to wear. The one he saw for the first time when he finally had the courage to clean out her closet.

The two of them, dressed as bride and groom, cutting a wedding cake. Looking closely, beyond the smiles, and the dress, and the setting; there, on their third fingers, matching wedding bands. The same bands Jon now had in a safe deposit box in a bank in Chicago.

Jon would remember this picture. He would remember this day. Somehow, his grandmother has a physical picture that could never have been taken.