I dreamt this morning that I was at a summit meeting of sorts. Only this wasn’t the high-end kind taking place in an oak-paneled boardroom with plush carpeting. Instead, it was rather low rent, being held under the bright lights of a gymnasium. There were ten of us there, five on either side of a long, narrow formica table. On one side, the elder statesmen of science fiction. On the other, some young punks. Well, call them not-so-young punks, since one of them was me.

This was a dream which immediately began to evaporate upon waking, so I can only remember that Jack Williamson and Fred Pohl were among the giants on the opposite side of the table. It didn’t strike me at all odd that Jack was there, even though he died two years ago. Unfortunately, the only writer I can remember from my side of the table was … me. I’m sad that this particular dream happened to evanesce; I’d love to know which writers my subconscious thought should be joining us!

Anyway, as this meeting of the minds took place, Fred kept hogging the conversation, and Jack, who was shuffling through papers while this was going on, finally had to tell him to keep quiet. “I want to hear what the kids think,” said Jack. Only to someone Jack’s age—he died at 98½—could I possibly seem like a kid!

With Fred quiet, the writers on my side started to share their thoughts about science fiction, but then, with the limberness of a teenager, Fred vanished under the table. He began to pull some sort of prank having to do with my feet, but as to whether he tied my shoelaces together or stuck matches in my shoes to set them on fire the way you only see in old movies and comic books, well, that’s another detail that’s been lost to me, and I vaguely remember both.

I woke as the writers on my side of the table were speaking, and immediately began to scribble down the dream, but these details were gone, all gone.