Some nights, I dream that my dad comes back from the dead and everything goes back to normal. That is, until we both remember that this can’t be happening, and he must leave again. I’ve had that dream a few dozen times over the past 20 years, and not one of those goodbyes has been easy. I’ve been forced to let him go over and over again.
Fantasies can’t live alone in the open world; they need to be grounded in personal truths to have a chance to be taken seriously. If there is some sort of personal experience encrusted upon a story I tell, it’s definitely connected to my childhood living in Valdivia, Chile.
When my dad told bedtime stories to me and my sister, he always went straight to telepathic communication with aliens—something he claimed to have experienced. He talked about UFOs and spirituality and its impact on the human soul—things 6-year-old me always suspected were not true. But I couldn’t really doubt his word, because how cool would it be if all of it was?
A graphic novel was something other, more talented folk made, not me. Then, one day out of the blue, I wrote a scene about an old lady telling someone that her cat wasn’t really a cat but her father, which I thought was a cool fantasy. Then my childhood entered the story and turned it into something that felt more personal. Characters came to life with different names, but with the personalities of people I hold dear.
Through the Black Gate is a graphic novel that explores the loneliness of being left behind, the loneliness that is ensured after saying goodbye to someone who matters to you. This is reflected in my characters: Irene feels robbed of her parents, Ruth feels incomplete without her best friends and desperately wants a family, the ferryman feels abandoned and the loneliness he experiences turns him into a monster.
In the making of this graphic novel, I lost my closest friend. He became the antagonist of the story I wrote, and I wanted him to return to the world of the living at any cost, as if you could rip the sky apart and bring someone back. It turns out that fantasies have a healing capacity if treated with care. Much of the advice given by Ruth and Sam are things I often tell myself to feel a little better.
Parts of my dad and, now, also my friend, live inside me. They give me advice, they laugh at some of my jokes, and I laugh at theirs. Is this true? Or are they just fictions of my imagination, as with my dad’s UFO stories? It seems unlikely that I am truly speaking with them, but it would be amazing if I was.