This is Future Tense Fiction, a podcast featuring stories about how technology could change tomorrow.

I'm Maddie Stone. What if technology could reveal everything about your future? Even if you could change nothing, would you still want to know?

Knowing how my life plays out means I don't have anxiety.

I don't fear.

So many things that weigh on people and tear them up are a fear of what's going to happen.

I don't have that.

I never have that.

On today's episode, we are bringing you a reading of David Isersen's This But Again.

Afterward, David tells us why he thinks life in a vast computer simulation might feel surprisingly familiar.

That's coming up on future tense fiction. Stay with us. This is Future Tense Fiction. I'm Maddie Stone.

I'm a freelance journalist and the editor of the Science of Fiction, a newsletter about how

science and pop culture intersect. Every month, Slate's Future Tense Partnership with New America and Arizona State

University's Center for Science and the Imagination publishes a short story that explores

how science and technology will shape our future. Now, we are bringing some of those

stories to you in a podcast that includes a conversation with the author or an expert in a related field.

Today's story is This But Again by David Iserson.

David is a film and television writer-producer in Los Angeles and the author of the novel Firecracker.

David's story follows Marcus, who is forced to relive his life on loop in a never-ending computer

simulation, muddling once again through graduations and funerals, but mostly just re-enduring

the in-between hours, repetitive and predictable. He can change very little. Perhaps he could

add an um here or there, or misdial a phone number.

But on the whole, Marcus is stuck.

...