This week, Futures is please to welcome M. Darusha Wehm with her story Reflections on a life story. Originally from Canada, Darusha is currently based in New Zealand where you can keep up to date with her writing on her website or by following her on Twitter. Here she offers some insight into her latest tale — as ever, it pays to read the story first.

Writing Reflections on a life story

From the books of Philip K. Dick to world of The Matrix, science fiction has often questioned the authenticity of our perceived existence.

How is a memory of a dream different from any other memory? How do I know that the reality I experience is, in fact, real? What is the true nature of reality? These questions have confounded philosophers and mystics for thousands of years, just as they have sparked an entire subgenre of science fiction.

When I ponder these questions, I often wonder if it even matters whether our existence is real. It feels real; isn’t that enough? This story came out of taking that question further — what if it doesn’t feel real? What if someone’s life story felt more like fiction than biography? And what if that person got a second chance to write their story?