Frankly, I'm a little dubious about the yarn. It's the result of last Friday's poker-session.... I actually did have the _déjà vu_ sensation, as you'll recall. On the way home I stopped in to pick up a chaser, feeling tired as all hell (like I always do--these long grinds are too much for me, I guess, just like the guy in the story) and the idea came to me to slap the old "we are fodder" angle into the thing as it happened and write it up. But it's still an old plot. And one angle is left unexplained: how is the narrator able to know all about the _slizzers_ and write about them after Joe gives him the _déjà vu_ treatment? Well, maybe the readers won't mind. I've gotten away with bigger holes than that. Try it on Bob Lowndes ... I still owe him on that advance. It's up his alley, hope-a-hope. Jerry Oct. 22, 1952 Jerome Bixby 862 Union Street Brooklyn, N. Y. Dear Jerry, I don't go for "The Slizzers." It just ain't convincing. As you say, it's an old idea ... and besides--again as you say--how does the narrator know what happened? The manuscript looks good in my wastebasket. Forget about it. Sympathies. Fred Oct. 23, 1952 Frederik Boles, Author's Agent 2200 Fifth Avenue New York, N. Y. Dear Wet Blanket (and aren't you a little old for that?) Respectfully nuts to you. After proper browbeating I think I'll try the yarn on Lowndes ... it's no masterpiece, but I think it's got a chance; he likes an off trail bit, now and then. I made a carbon, natch, so your ditching of the original comes to naught. Funny thing ... every time I read it over I get the doggonedest _déjà vu_ feeling. Real dynamic thing ... almost lifts my hair. Hope it does the same for the readers, them as can read. Maybe Joe didn't quite do the job of making me forget what happened that night, ha, ha. Say! ... maybe that could explain the _narrator's_ remembering what happened ... or maybe--hey! A _real_ idea! Remember Joe's kidding us about monsters?--remember, you got a little sore because he was holding up the game, you money-hungry son? I think I'll rewrite the ending to include that! ... which oughta take care of the narrator's remembering: Joe can be sort of a dopey _slizzer_, a blat-mouth, and his screwy theory (which is _true_ in the story, or will be when I write it in--say, isn't this involved!) can trigger our hero's memory just a bit, shake the block a mite, undiddle the synapses etc ... and then I'll have you, platinum-butt, step in to head Joe off, under pretense of a poker itch.