The Life That Is Not Happening

Siavash, an Iranian poet and researcher living in Finland, drifts between two realities – one anchored in loneliness, migration, and fragmented memories, and another in which he mysteriously has a wife, Shahrzad, and a daughter, Negah. His flights between Finland and Iran propel him into uncertain futures and forgotten pasts. Conversations with his mother and friends, encounters through a dating app, and reflections in a digital-storytelling workshop expose a fractured identity. Borrowing from astronomy the idea that light shifts red as things move apart and blue as they draw near, this novella explores themes of memory, time, immigration, and the liminal space between fantasy and reality – questioning how a life can be both lived and not lived at once.