… I am in a brightly-lit room that is high-ceilinged and chandeliered. A massive, red-carpeted stairway sweeps upwards; it seems to promise even more grandeur in the unglimpsed chambers above. The room strongly resembles a Disney fairy-tale royal banquet hall, and yet somehow I know, in a typical burst of dream-logic, that it is also my room, the very one I fell asleep in.

I am sitting in the center of the room, at a sturdy wooden desk. One by one, strange figures float through a nearby doorway that is ten feet tall: these are the fairy god-people come to my baptism-as-writer, here to bestow their respective gifts on me. Some of them are winged, shimmering, others are earthbound and solid. They come in, dispense advice, or objects, or blessings, then wander off, more often than not in the direction of a nearby buffet table.

First there is Donald Barthelme, bespectacled, wide-eyed and bushy-bearded, his wings a strange serrated shape and in various clashing colors. He hands me a laughter-colored balloon with these words imprinted on its rubber surface: "There is nothing written that cannot be used somewhere else."

Lorrie Moore hands me a self-help book. I flip through the pages to discover that they are blank. "Fill 'er up," she says, then goes off to the fridge for some cold beer.

Truman Capote, dressed in a smart blazer and a smart pair of shorts and Gucci loafers, waddles up to me and says, "For God's sake, practice. Practice, practice, practice. You are an apprentice at the altar of technique, craft; learn well the intricacies of paragraphing, punctuation, dialogue placement. Not to mention the grand overall design, the great demanding arc of middle-beginning-end."

Haruki Murakami steps forward, and places a little toy wind-up bird on the table before me. "You must travel a long way from the stuffed cabbage," he intones enigmatically.

Nick Joaquin shuffles my way, and offers me a swig of San Miguel. In the bottle I can see liquid ghosts, men and women caught in an ever-turbulent dance.

Gregorio Brillantes gives me a prism.

Mark Helprin gives me a little crystal globe with a miniature city inside. The globe is filled with some slow fluid, and a fine white powder has settled on the city's miniature turrets and rooftops. When I shake the globe, it snowstorms.

Martin Amis sneers. Will Self offers me drugs. Ian McEwan sits in a corner and stares at something invisible and far away. Julian Barnes regales me with a story of an Englishman in Paris.

Renata Adler hands me a stack of postcards, photographs, anecdotes, episodes. She also tells me the wittiest joke I've ever heard.

Jonathan Carroll is pulling bouquets of roses from a black top hat. He pulls out still-beating hearts, masks, crayons, kaleidoscopes. Finally he pulls out Death, a well-mannered, sickle-smiled young man.

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