"I'm dreaming," I said. It seemed to me that I had said it aloud. I knew that I was in bed. I was aware of the bedclothes. I was aware of the scattered city lights peeping through the slats of the Venetian blinds.
Yet he was there. As alive--as living--as real--
I could reach out and touch him, but I dared not move.
I recognized him. I've seen enough pictures of him, and so has everyone. He did not look quite like his pictures, for he was old, very old. White hair fringed his head. I recognized him. I simply knew who he was.
He said, "I'm dreaming."
We stared at each other and all the world faded away--the bed and the bedclothes and the room. I said, "You're Benjamin Franklin."
He smiled slowly and said, "It may be that this is not a dream only. I stand close to death and perhaps the dying may have their wishes answered; if so be the wish be sufficiently earnest. Of what year are you?"
I felt panic rise. It might be a dream, but it might be madness. "I am dreaming!" I insisted wildly.
"Of course, you are, after a fashion, dreaming," said Franklin--what else could I call him? "And I as well. How is it conceivable that you and I could speak but by something outside reality? And how does man transcend reality but in dreams? Of what year are you, my good sir?"
I was silent. He waited patiently and then shook his head.
"Then I will speak first," he said. "I am old enough to have naught to fear. It is New Year's Eve of the Year of our Lord, 1790, in the fourteenth year of the Independence of the United States, and in the first year of the presidency of George Washington. And in the last year of poor Benjamin Franklin, too. I will not last the new year. I know that.
"I do not die prematurely. In a fortnight and a few days I will mark my eighty-fourth birthday. A good old age, for it has made my life long enough to see my native land become a new nation among the nations of the Earth, and I have had something to do with that. We have a Constitution that was hammered out, not without pain, and will perhaps serve. And General Washington is spared to lead us.
"Yet will our nation last? The great monarchies of Europe remain hostile and there are dissensions among ourselves. British forces still hold our frontier posts; Spain threatens in the south; our trade languishes; the party spirit grows. Will our nation last?"
I managed to nod my head.
)
On the eve of the American Bicentennial, Isaac Asimov communicates with Benjamin Franklin in a dream. When their subconscious discussion of spectacular scientific advancement turns to the disappointing state of global politics, Franklin draws on his expertise in nation-building by suggesting a plan to unite the world of the 20th century.
