This week Futures is pleased to welcome David B Litt with his story Life in the clouds. By day David is a graduate student in chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, by night he writes stories… You can find out more about him at his website or by following him on Twitter. Here he reveals the spark that lit the fuse for his latest tale — as ever it pays to read the story first.

Writing Life in the clouds

I got the idea to write Life in the Clouds when I dreamt about a group of scientists who had created a highly efficient procedure for converting base metals into gold, while the world suffered from extreme drought. They desperately tried to use the gold to prolong their lives as civilization crumbled around them.

When I woke, I had one question. Would all the gold in the world be enough to save humanity if we focus on solving the wrong problems? Life in the Clouds is my attempt to answer that question.