"Rautavaara's Case" is a science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 short story

Short story

A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...

 by Philip K. Dick

Philip K. Dick

Philip Kindred Dick was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist whose published work is almost entirely in the science fiction genre. Dick explored sociological, political and metaphysical themes in novels dominated by monopolistic corporations, authoritarian governments and altered...

. It was first published in 1980 in Omni

Omni (magazine)

OMNI was a science and science fiction magazine published in the US and the UK. It contained articles on science fact and short works of science fiction...

 magazine and subsequently in the 1985 short story collection I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon

I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon (collection)

I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon is a book by Philip K. Dick, a collection of 10 science fiction short stories and one essay. It was first published by Doubleday in 1985 and was edited by Mark Hurst and Paul Williams...

. The story was also included on We Can Remember It For You Wholesale

We Can Remember It for You Wholesale (collection)

We Can Remember It for You Wholesale is a collection of science fiction stories by Philip K. Dick. It was first published by Citadel Twilight in 1990 and reprints Volume II of The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick replacing the story "Second Variety" with "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale"...

, volume five of the Collected Short Stories of Philip K Dick in 2003.

The story is about Agneta Rautavaara, a young Finnish

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

 technician, who dies in an accident while working on a space vessel with two other technicians. However, a rescue team from Proxima Centauri

Proxima Centauri

Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf star about 4.2 light-years distant in the constellation of Centaurus. It was discovered in 1915 by Robert Innes, the Director of the Union Observatory in South Africa, and is the nearest known star to the Sun, although it is too faint to be seen with the naked eye...

 gets there in time to save Rautavaara's brain and impose artificial life support on it. In her damaged brain, Rautavaara goes through a series of experiences that draw on the conceptions of afterlife

Afterlife

The afterlife is the belief that a part of, or essence of, or soul of an individual, which carries with it and confers personal identity, survives the death of the body of this world and this lifetime, by natural or supernatural means, in contrast to the belief in eternal...

 held by herself on the one hand and the Proxima Centauri natives on the other.

A theme of the story is whether it is ethically right to keep a human on life-support if they exist only as a mind, with their body paralyzed or otherwise destroyed.