THE GAME THAT ONLY EXISTED IN OUR ROOM

Time doesn’t always behave.

Sometimes it folds.

Sometimes it repeats.

Sometimes it gives you a version of reality meant only for you and the small creature who witnessed it beside you.

This is the night Sweetie and I slipped into a parallel timeline and came back with a score the world never recorded.

THE GAME THAT ONLY EXISTED IN OUR ROOM

(Updated with the true Sweetie — January 30, 2022)

We had only been in the new place for a couple of months, boxes still half settled, routines still forming, Sweetie already claiming the room as her kingdom-in-progress. She wasn’t Queen Sweetie yet not the grown woman bird she is now, but she was sharp, curious, and adapting fast.

It was January 30, 2022, the big 49ers vs Rams NFC Championship game. First playoff meeting in years. Everyone was talking about it.

I wasn’t thinking about surgery.

I wasn’t thinking about anything heavy.

I was just living my normal life, eating regular food, Sweetie perched in her usual spot like a tiny blue analyst-in-training.

The game started or at least, that’s what the world outside said.

But inside our room?

Time did something else.

Sweetie and I watched a full game.

Not a blur.

Not a dream.

A whole, complete, emotional arc of football.

And in our world, the 49ers won.

Everything in our room flowed toward that victory, the momentum, the plays, the energy. The score we saw was the opposite of what the real world would later insist was true.

Because in the real timeline the one outside our door the Rams won that day.

Everyone knows the stats:

• Final Score: Rams 20, 49ers 17

• Date: January 30, 2022

• Location: SoFi Stadium, Inglewood, CA

Matthew Stafford threw for 337 yards and two touchdowns.

Cooper Kupp dominated with 142 yards and two TDs.

Odell Beckham Jr. added 113 yards.

Jimmy Garoppolo threw for 232 yards and two touchdowns, but the late interception and the fourth quarter collapse sealed the 49ers’ fate.

The Rams came back from a 17–7 deficit, outscoring the 49ers 13–0 in the final quarter.

Two Matt Gay field goals one to tie, one to win closed it out.

That’s the version the world remembers.

But in our room?

In our little pocket of time?

Everything was reversed.

And Sweetie, young, bright-eyed, still learning about her new room reacted with real interest. She wasn’t faking anything; Sweetie never fakes. She leaned forward on her perch, feathers lifting just a little, giving those soft, earnest chirps she used to make when she understood more than she could express.

She wasn’t performing.

She wasn’t pretending.

She was engaged fully, naturally, instinctively.

A young Sweetie, adapting to her new space, responding honestly to the game like it mattered, because to her, it did.

We watched the after game show.

We reacted to the commentary.

We lived for over an hour of time steady, real, full.

Then I stepped into the hallway.

The air felt wrong.

Too still.

Too early.

I knocked on my roommate’s door.

She opened it, confused, like I’d interrupted something.

“The game’s just starting,” she said.

Just starting.

In her timeline, only seconds had passed.

In mine, in ours, the whole thing was over.

I stood there with the echo of the touchdown still warm in my chest, Sweetie chirping behind me like she was asking why the world didn’t match what we just lived.

Two timelines.

One room.

One tiny bird who saw it all.

And the strangest part wasn’t the slip.

It was the joy.

Because in our room, in that little pocket of time that didn’t belong to the hallway or the world outside, we had the best seats in the house and Sweetie had the time of her life.

Time is here today

Gone tomorrow

Time is here looped

Into the correct timeline of yesterday

We all think our timeline

Is the correct one

Time is here

Time is gone

Time loops back to the past

Only to catch up to the future

After walking into time and space

Finding out time is nonlinear

Both timelines are correct

For all parties living in their own space

created, written, edited

by Vicki Lawana Trusselli

Trusselli Art

Outstages Cafe Art Studio

copyright 2026