I woke in the middle of the night from a dream that started out science fictional and turned personal. The dream’s ending seemed so tense to me that for a while, as I lay there in the dark, I thought I wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep. Thankfully, I eventually did.

It started out innocently enough. I was in a store buying some books. They were all anthologies, perhaps because of the string of them I’ve been reading in real life. (I’m in the middle of the Ellen Datlow-edited Poe right now). That morphed into me autographing a copy of one of the DAW anthologies in which my stories have appeared for a customer who’d recognized me. I’m not sure which title it was.

The next thing I know I was instead in a condo with the person whose book I was signing, and the electricity went out. It was so dark that I could barely see. I kept flicking light switches, but nothing would happen. Eventually, the sun came up—I could see it rise over an uninterrupted horizon out the front window—and illuminated the room. I was alone now, and the only sound was distant music. I went in search of the source of that music, which seemed to me to be coming from a radio in a back room.

I wandered the halls, opening closed doors, and eventually found a man tied up in one of the bedrooms. The radio volume was turned high so that no one could hear him calling for help. I stared at him for a moment before realizing that he was my maternal grandfather, Nathan Goldstein, looking younger than I’d ever known him.

I was in the past, which, since this was a dream, I did not question.

“What are you waiting for,” he said, not recognizing me for his future grandchild. “Untie me!”

My grandfather, who in this waking world died twenty years ago in his late 80s, was a bookie and an alcoholic. He hung around with unsavory characters. He could be tremendously charming, the life of the party. But let him take that first drink and things went downhill fast. So when you were with him, you never knew which Nathan Goldstein you were going to get, which meant you were always on edge.

As soon as I untied him, he rushed from the room, telling me to wait there while he dealt with those who had done this to him. Once he was gone, however, all I could think was … there’s no way that becoming part of his life will turn out well, not even if he now considers me his rescuer.

So I left the condo and went out into the street to get way from that entanglement, while wondering, based on his apparent age, what year it was. The ’50s? The ’40s? As I tried to think whether any of my knowledge of the past would help me escape from him and make my way in that time, I woke. I was tense from the encounter, and didn’t think I could get back to sleep … but by forcing myself to think of other things, I was able to clear him from my mind, and eventually did.