The Kestrel's Dreams

August 31, 2014

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I was in a school (I can't remember if it was highschool or college, but I get the feeling it was highschool) and reliving a whole year of my life. The cycle started on a day when my class went to a beach for a field trip. In the original run-through, the guy I had a crush on, who was one of my best friends, drowned in the water. In the next few days, I had picked up a new book from a local book store. I read it, and it seemed to be about the people around me; I saw lots of similarities between the two.

I don't remember the rest of that year. Except that on the day my best friend and I went to visit the grave of my passed away friend, I was suddenly back at the beach, and he was alive again. I was really confused at first, but I remembered that he was going to die, and I somehow managed to make sure he survived. I kept him from going out in the water at that time and kept an eye on him the whole time. I was so relieved that he was alive. I still liked him, but I was scared to tell him. I had picked up the same book from the book store to read, because I remembered really liking it in the previous time. As I read it, though, I noticed differences. It had a different plot than the first one, but the same characters. I did some research this time, and found out the author was actually a new teacher at my school.

Again, on that same day the next year, I realized I was back on the beach and he was about to drown again. I ran to my best friend, told her to save him, and she did; she could swim better than I could. This time, however, I realized that I no longer had a crush on him. I watched them coming back to shore, and sighed with relief. The next day, in class, the author of that book was introduced as our new teacher. This was different...! He wasn't my teacher in the other timelines. When his book came out, I got it, and read it, and again the plot was slightly different. Everyone in the class was asking for his autograph and whatnot because of him having published a book, and a popular one at that. He had a few other books, but I didn't read them. As the year went on, I got to know the teacher a lot better. I was going to confess to him that I liked him one day, but I realized too late that it was the same day I would go back a year.

I was at the beach yet again, wondering why I kept going back in time. It was getting annoying... I had my best friend save my guy friend again (they had started dating in the previous timeline) and went off to find the teacher. I knew he was there because he was a chaperone. I came up to him and started talking to him, and found out he would be our teacher in this timeline, too. That made me happy.

When the book came out, I didn't buy it this time. I was walking past the bookstore and glanced at it in the window a few months later, looking at the cover art, which hadn't changed in any of the timelines (though I can't remember what it was), and realized that the teacher was standing behind me; he had been walking the other direction and noticed me looking at the book. He glanced at me and asked, "Have you read it?"

I shrugged. "About three times already!"

The next day I decided to read it after all. I wanted to see if it was going to be different again, and in what ways. It was different. The teacher noticed me reading it, and asked me about it: "I thought you've already read it three times?"

"Well, each time I read it, it's different." (does anyone else think this could be some deep shit? Like, "every time you read a book the experience changes because you've changed" type thing? hmmm) "Every time I read your book, Mr. ---, it's different."

He looked at me for a while, and then asked me if I wanted to see the drafts for the book. I was so excited, and said I would love to!

Giddily, I went with him to his office. He pulled out stacks of paper, and I looked through them; there were 4 drafts: the first draft was the version I read the first time; the second was the second version I read; the third draft was the third version I'd read, and I didn't need to look to guess that the final draft was the one that was published in this timeline.

"I have the other books, too..." He said, handing me the drafts of the other books he'd written in the past. I still hadn't read them, and so I smiled at him and told him I would have to read them soon. I looked at him and was about to ask him if he'd also been reliving the year I had relived, but my friends came in. They had a question about something from class.

"What's all this stuff?" They asked, looking at the papers.

"He's an author," I said.
"What, like, Miyazaki?" That was my best friend.
"No, he wrote screenplays and directed movies," said the teacher man.
"Ohhhh." That was my friends.

It was then that I realized that my classmates hadn't gone insane over the new book this time. It turned out that in this timeline he had published the latest book under an alias (his other books were not well known, so the students didn't know about them). Thus, we found out that we had both been reliving the year. We sort of clung together naturally from that point on, and I got the feeling of being deeply loved by him, but neither of us ever said anything or acted on the feelings; we were teacher and student, no matter how young of a teacher he was (especially because he was so young)

Toward the end of that year, we were both on a train with my best friend and another student from the class. There were two old women in the back of the train; one black, and one white. They were very, very old, but I could even then see the love emanating from them both. They had been lovers for a very long time, and faced many hardships and barriers in their love (being both a homosexual pair and an interracial pair in their prime, when both of these things were considered to be shameful). This event was a pre-death funeral for one of the two (I think for the white one). My friends were there because the woman had apparently been a bus driver for them, and the Teacher and I were there to support them. My best friend started to cry, and I rubbed her back for comfort, and when she was okay again, I leaned on the Teacher's shoulder, getting sad for the people around me. He put his arm around me and I wondered if we would go back in time again the next day, which was the end of the year... Then I woke up.