It was the last two weeks of the fall semester in college, and I was in Ms. Manda’s class. Most people didn’t show up as everyone knew not a single teacher was giving out work. The only people that showed up were those bound by scholarships and those who appreciated her as a teacher. She never gave her final at the same time as other professors as it gave us more time to study with less stress and more time to study for her final, I was very much thankful for this, so as you could tell I went because I appreciated her.
“Good morning class, I hope you guys aren’t ready to leave me just yet for the new semester. I have a treat for everyone kind enough to show up today!” She continued. “I’m going to teach you all about something you may never forget, or maybe you’ll just shrug it off, I don’t know. But I do recommend you listen to this. Sydney, when did Nelson Mandela die?” It was a simple question which caused me to second guess my own thoughts.
“He died in an African prison, didn’t he?” I said, although it was more like a question when it came out. This is what I originally thought until another student named Amber chimed in.
“I thought he died in 2013 because of a respiratory disease,” Amber said, confident in her answer. I didn’t know whether I was right, or if she was, so I listened to what was said next.
“Would you look at that, it seems we have a discrepancy in our answers.” We all nodded our heads in agreement. “Who here agrees with Sydney?” About half the class raised their hands. “And who agrees with Amber?” The other half raised their hands for Amber. “Amber, you are closer to correct. Sydney where did you learn that Nelson Mandela died in an African prison?”
“I remember learning about it in middle school during black history month,” I said without doubt or hesitation.
“Yeah, me too” another student said from the back of the class. “He died and his wife was trying to sue a company, at least I think so”
“Amazing!” Ms. Manda said with the giddiness of a child. “You remember this yet, it never happened. You can look it up, but you won’t find anything about any prison.” This left me a little weirded out. Most of the class was silent, they knew she had some kind of explanation for this. “This is known as the Mandela Effect, and nobody can explain it. A current, real-time anomaly that not even science can comprehend!” After that it felt like her class flew by and I was left astonished.
You might be wondering how it pertained to me, you see I was so spooked by it. Morbidly intrigued by it if you will. It was fascinating but I had to study for exams, so I didn’t really have time to ponder it too much. That was until a week later when me and my best friend Bre sat down for lunch.
Bre and I have been friends since 3rd grade, and we met at Alexandria Elementary school in Virginia. We grabbed our usual booth seat in our corner. It was an early Saturday morning, last week of the semester and we’d been studying like crazy. We figured our day would be the usual. Which consisted of studying and resisting the urge to go party, which was prominent on our campus at the time. Bre was a typical prankster—here for fun and parties—and didn’t excel at school, but as a good friend I made her study and pass her classes.
“As soon as this semester is done,” Bre said as she finished her mouthful of food, “we’re partying hard. Like I don’t wanna know where I am afterwards.” I gave a grin
“Yeah, for sure, don’t you wish you were back in Alexandria?” I asked, exhausted from all the schooling.
“Oh yeah, that was a whole different universe. It was so easy, and there were only fourteen of us, fifteen if you include Ms. Tribou.”
“You mean fifteen students, right?” I said with a little concern in my voice.
“No, I remember fourteen of us. It was me, you, Jacob, Jessica, Emily, Dalton, Paul, Genesis, Tyler, Caleb, Amy, Will, Gaby, and Smith.” Bre said, reinforcing the answer she gave me just a moment ago.
“You forgot Noah” I said, slightly annoyed.
“Who?” Bre said in a confused manner.
“Noah, the shy boy with blonde hair, he never talked to anyone” I said trying to get her to recall the kid.
“I’m pretty sure there were fourteen of us, I don’t remember anyone named Noah.” she said
“Bre are you messing with me?” I asked now genuinely concerned.
“No, there just was no Noah. I’m 100% sure there were fourteen of us” Bre said, sounding annoyed with all my insistence. “There were seven girls and seven guys.”
This made me feel dismayed. “No,” I shook my head. “Seven girls and eight guys. That’s how it was. You’re messing with me and it’s not very funny, you know I’ve been reading about the Mandela effect, and you know it freaks me out.”
“Stop it. Enough of that Mandela stuff. There was never a Noah. Maybe you’re just sleep deprived.” Bre suggested
“Huh?” I was becoming annoyed. All this hysteria kept my head spinning and it was hard to make sense of.
“You’re not messing with me, are you Sydney?”
“No. You’re just forgetting about him, yes that’s it. I mean 3rd grade was a long time ago” I said
“Maybe,” she shrugged. “You know what, no. I remember that class easily, there were seven boys and seven girls. You have to be thinking about something else, it’s the only thing I can think of.”
“Don’t tell me I was thinking about something else” I said, my face filled with dread. I was starting to feel hopeless. “Just stop Bre, please. You know the Mandela effect has freaked me the crap out” I pleaded.
“I’m not messing with you, calm down” she slides her green tea my way. “Try some of that and decompress, it’s not a big deal girl, I promise.” So, I did, and I drank some. Although this didn’t help me.
“Do you not remember him? We were in groups of 5, he was in my group.”
“You’re right that there were 5 people in each group, but Ms. Tribou was in one of the groups, remember?”
“No, she was supervising us because y’all were Rowdy.” I protested “Noah was in my group. Every time he was chosen to read, he’d always choke up and we’d move past him so we could continue reading.” Bre was silent at this point. We both knew what we knew, and one of us was right, we just didn’t know who. “Do you at least remember his father’s car?” I’m trying to grasp at straws at this point. “Noah would get out of a black Mercedes and his dad would give him a big hug every morning. I don’t like cars and I’m most certainly not knowledgeable about cars, but I remember his because of how nice it was. We used to talk about it because it was the coolest thing we had seen.” Bre just looked at me, concerned.
“Sydney, I’d say you were talking about another school, but we’ve been in the same school since first grade, and I don’t remember anyone named Noah, ever. You probably remember him from preschool.”
“No, he’s not from preschool. I know he isn’t.” saying those words felt nauseating.
“Well, you’re just talking about 3rd grade, what about after?” I thought about it for a second, but I just couldn’t remember Noah anywhere else.
“I don’t remember him in any grade after 3rd…” I said, and I looked down defeated. What if I was wrong? What if I was going crazy? I decided to take a second to think. “Maybe he just moved away after 3rd grade, yeah that’s it.”
“No Sydney, I remember that class easily, Ms. Tribou was my favorite teacher. I don’t see how I could forget her class. I don’t remember a guy named Noah.” I don’t really know why but at that moment, I wanted to cry. Imagine you watch a movie, and the character is looking at a mirror and the mirror image stops following that person. It’s freaky, but later you find out that the movie is based on a true story. Anyone could say that it’s a true story, but then it happens to you. That’s how I felt sitting with Bre. I remembered Noah like the back of my hand, but Bre didn’t. I felt like I was going to have a panic attack at that moment. This fact disturbed me so much I decided not to study for the rest of the day. I tried my hardest to place Noah in preschool or something, but he just didn’t fit anywhere but in 3rd grade in Ms. Tribou’s class. I decided to call my mom, as I’m not entirely convinced, I’m witnessing the Mandela effect in action. I mean what are the odds it happens to me, right?
“Hey Sydney! What a pleasant surprise!” She sounded excited.
“Hey mom! Odd question, but do you remember a person named Noah back when I was in 3rd grade by chance?” To her it probably did sound like an odd question, but I just had to know.
“Uh…I’m sorry but no, it doesn’t ring a bell. I remember on your 9th birthday you invited all the kids, although I don’t remember anyone with that name.”
“Yeah, that’s because he didn’t come.”
“Well, I have some photos if you want those.” I sighed in relief when I heard those words.
“Yes please, if you don’t mind!” I spoke
“I’ll get them to you in a few minutes, but I have to ask, why do you want the pictures?”
“Bre doesn’t remember Noah either. It was just weirding me out a little bit” I said as I gave an awkward chuckle, trying to hide how nervous I was. “Wait do you have the class picture?”
“You mean the one with all fourteen of you?” That caught me off guard. I really wasn’t expecting her to say that.
“Fifteen mom, there were fifteen of us.”
“No, fourteen I thought. Right?”
“What the crap” I whisper too only myself. “Yeah…yeah, if you could just send the pictures” I said, with a little more urgency and restlessness.
“Okay…are you alright sweetie?” She asked. I knew she was concerned for me, but I just wanted to get off the phone at this point.
“Yeah, it just bugs me nobody remembers him.” I waited a minute or two before my mother said anything else.
“Darn, I couldn’t find the class photo.” She sighed. “Bre’s mom might have it, try and get it from her.”
“Will do.” We continued talking for a while, but my mind was too preoccupied by the thought of Noah. I can vaguely remember his posture, perfectly straight and upright. I’ll also sometimes smell the cologne that he had when he hugged his father every morning. The smell always lingers long enough to remind me of 3rd grade. I remember everything about him, I mean I knew I could point him out if I saw him in any of the pictures. What bothered me was the fact that the Mandela effect worked with pinpoint precision. It doesn’t leave anything behind, let me explain.
Through some research I’ve found something similar. A lot of people took pictures In front of the thinker and they know it didn’t look the way it does now. They reluctantly take out their old photo albums and thumb through the pictures only to realize that it was for nothing, because the thinker is doing exactly what they thought the thinker was doing. What’s even weirder are the pictures online. They’re posing with their fist against their head, right in front of the statue. You’d think that they would know how to pose as they’re right in front of it, but what if they aren’t truly posing wrong, what if the statue did have its fist against its head? That would mean the Mandela effect must have occurred at some inconspicuous and untraceable time and changed the statue but left everything else untouched, resulting in people posing wrong. Taking this same logic, receiving these pictures would mean nothing. Whether or not Noah was standing there in the picture all those years ago, he wouldn’t show up in it. The only way to know if this is the Mandela effect was to catch it through relative things, like people posing wrong in front of statues. If Noah wasn’t in the pictures, then I would know something is up.
I start looking at the pictures my mom sent me and the first two don’t catch my eye, the third one, however, does. It’s about the Christmas concert in 3rd grade. All fifteen of us learned three church songs and sang them Infront of our parents, and it was embarrassing. All of us except for Tyler, who was born to be a singer, but this was especially embarrassing for Noah. In the photo you see all of us on the stage. Four boys on the left, five girls on the right, and five people of both genders in the middle. It was obvious that there was a spot on the right where someone should be. It was Dalton, Paul, and Tyler on the bottom step of the stage and Smith on the top step of the stage by himself. It was weird and unordinary as there were two girls on the top step on the right. He would fit perfectly next to Smith. This looked like proof to me, so I saved it after examining it. If I showed this to Bre there’d be no way she could deny this.
The next day when I found Bre, I showed her the picture, and this surprisingly affected her. She seemed nervous when she started to acknowledge what I found out. She said if I told her about Noah now instead of before she’d just say that it was a coincidence, but since I mentioned it to her before either of us saw the picture it made it a lot stranger. She wasn’t ready to fully believe the Mandela effect like me, but she was curious and asked her mother for the class picture and sure enough she had it. We were anxious while it was being sent it, and I gasped “The bee sting!”
“What?” Bre asked, startled by my burst of energy.
“See how we’re standing like that? It was because of Noah!” Ms. Tribou stood in the center with five people facing forward, and the other ten facing inward. People typically do this to save space but that didn’t make sense as we had ample space to move around. “Noah got stung on the cheek so everyone on the sides turned inward! It made it where we only saw the good side of his cheek!” I was ecstatic as this felt like all the proof I needed.
“I don’t know man” Bre scratched her head. “I’m pretty sure we just wanted to save room.”
“No, we didn’t. There’s so much room on the left and right side it’s unnatural. We wouldn’t have just done it for that reason.”
“I don’t remember anything about that happening, honestly. T-this is starting to weird me out, I-I think we should just forget about it” Bre started
“I can’t! I can’t forget about it! He was real, I don’t see how everyone could forget him!” I probably sounded crazy to Bre at this point.
What I was saying wasn’t getting through to her, so I decided that there’s only one course of action, and that is to have a reunion. If we met up and more than just one of us remembered Noah, then that would prove that I was indeed correct. It had been quite a few years, and we hadn’t spoken in quite some time, but I had Gaby as a friend on Facebook and she’d been wanting to have a reunion since we’re all in our twenties now. I contacted her that night and she was immediately on board. We were all about to be on winter break from college so it would be perfect. I suggested we meet back in Alexandria, Virginia. I wanted to see my mom and dad for Christmas anyway, plus my parents said that they should host a reunion party for me for a while now. When I told Gaby she got started on contacting everyone right away. She said all fifteen of us, which gave me a sense of hope.
“All fifteen?” I questioned,
“Yep, us and Ms. Tribou!” The moment Gaby said this. a part of my anticipation for the reunion died a little bit. Gaby always tried to keep our possie together, so her forgetting Noah meant something had to be going on.
When December 18th hit, I pulled into my driveway. Nostalgia hit me like a truck as I hadn’t been here in years. Usually, my parents just came down to visit me as the drive was long and treacherous. This and the fact it gets cold in Virginia during winter. My parents got me from the airport and took me home. The entire time though my brain was wrapped around the idea of Noah. I knew if I wanted to find relief from this endless mind game of cat and mouse, I’d find it at this reunion. At 4pm all of us made it but Ms. Tribou, and Jacob. Ms. Tribou was busy with family as she had a baby on the way, while the last thing we all heard about Jacob was that he went to juvenile detention during high school. Seeing everyone made me forget about Noah for a minute.
Everyone looked amazing! Gaby looked just as beautiful as she always had, and Tyler dressed to impress, and impress he did. Dalton joined the marines and had some huge muscles. Paul sadly looked older with age and the guy’s acne was not very under control. Emily was on her way to becoming a big model, while Tyler was making his way in the music industry. Caleb was a fitness trainer and was in shape. Genesis, Amy, Will, and Jessica didn’t have anything big going for them but college. We caught up for an hour and I didn’t even remember to ask about Noah, till Genesis said she was glad we all made it. Bre had told me prior to coming to Virginia to not bring Noah up but I just had to. There was this nagging feeling just telling me to, so I did.
“Hey guys, I got a question.” I said this and Bre just looked disappointed. I knew she told me not to ask but I couldn’t just stand by.
“Yeah, what’s up?” Dalton asked.
“This might sound weird, but where’s Noah?”
Tyler spoke “I was thinking that too.” When the words came out of his mouth my heart skipped a beat. I wasn’t insane. Nobody else remembered him but me and Tyler. After Tyler spoke though there was a deafening silence. Bre looked pale and I was pleased yet terrified.
“Who?” Gaby asked
“I don’t know his last name, but it is Noah. He was quiet, shy, and had blonde hair. Always hugged his dad.” Tyler said in response
“What the…” Bre muttered to herself bewildered.
“Am I missing something?” Amy asked confused.
“There was a guy in our class named Noah. Until now I didn’t think anyone remembered him, but Tyler remembers him. I thought I lost my mind because he’s been wiped out from our pictures. There isn’t a single sign of him existing anywhere else but my brain. I really thought I had gone off the deep end, but Tyler remembered!” I exclaimed.
“There wasn’t a Noah. I don’t see how I can distinctly remember all but a single person.” Dalton said in response. Most people started nodding in agreement with Dalton till Tyler spoke up.
“No, there was a Noah. Sydney here wrote a love letter to him, and Ms. Tribou took it up and read it to the class. We all laughed, and Ms. Tribou left it on her desk,” Tyler saying this got my brain juices flowing and it reminded me of what happened that day.
“Yeah, and then I asked you to grab the note off her desk and I ended up telling you to throw it away. You told me you instead showed your parents the note and you guys were laughing your butts off,” I finished for Tyler.
“I don’t remember that at all. It couldn’t have happened,” Amy said
“Then how would me and Sydney remember the exact same thing? It wouldn’t make sense if it didn’t happen,” Tyler chimed in.
This was just like the people posing in front of the thinker statue, balled in a confident fist when they were flaccidly poking his chest. It was changed, just like Noah was and we had no explanation as to why or how.
“Well, that’s just really weird,” Gaby said. Whether Noah really was here or not, nobody could disagree with the fact that it was simply weird. We changed subjects and moved on from that as quickly as possible. Everyone but me. I wanted to ask Tyler what he remembered, but it never came up again. This whole Mandela effect had done something to me that I don’t think I’ll ever truly recover from. I tried my best to forget about Noah, but I couldn’t. I had so many unanswered questions, like what happened to him? Why him and not someone else? It was horrifying to think about. Bre was also like me, terrified to her core. I could tell by how she acted the rest of the night. Everyone slept at my house due to their parents moving and the fact there weren’t any hotels. I stayed behind and stayed at my parents’ house. Both worked, which left me with me, myself, and I.
I didn’t receive the closure I was hoping for. I still felt there was a huge hole where answers should be. Not only this but I was also bombarded with the thoughts of Noah. I remembered him pulling into the car circle in that nice Mercedes. I remembered the bee sting before the Christmas show. That bothered me more than the others. Although this time he was more than the victim of just a typical bee sting. Instead, this time he was the victim of an unforeseeable cosmic event that tore him from this universe. We all gave each other our numbers so we could stay connected, so that was a bonus. It was a good thing we did as Tyler texted me on Christmas eve.
“I’ve been reading up on this Mandela stuff and it has me messed up. I think it’s what happened to Noah. Look at this” and he sent a picture of the note I wrote with it addressed to Noah. It was all I needed to see. Noah really existed. Taken away when two universes collided. Taken away from everything except this note, Tyler’s memories, and my memories. This only left me with questions though. What happened? Is he alive? What happened to the quiet, shy little boy, and will I ever know? Probably not. Maybe he’s in a world where both the thinker and the people in the photos are posing correctly. Maybe he’s trapped in an endless void scared he’ll never see his dad again. I hope for the former, but I guess I will not truly know. As I lay on my childhood bed, all I could do was imagine him there with me in this place called Alexandria Virgnia, the place where the universe made a mistake.
I got a plane back to my college and vowed to never return to Virginia again. Not too long after I got back, a notification from Ms. Tribou popped up on Facebook. It was a post with the caption “To my favorite class ever! Sorry I missed this reunion, but I’ll be sure to make it to the next one!” Above it was a drawing of seven girls and eight guys. I cannot say the same about everyone else, but I’ll never unsee that image. The image that still had the boy who the universe tore away from us.
