Can’t stop thinking that I’m surrounded by people who were once like me and that one day I’ll be like them.

They all had their dreams and aspirations as I do. And now they are in the silent realm of their thombs, where there are no more dreams, goals, or concerns—simply no more; they are no more.

Curiously, here where I live, thombs generally feature a picture of the deseased person in them, which I can’t post here due to privacy reasons. But it is really scary at first to know, deep in your brain, that the person depicted in that picture is now inside that thomb and will be forever there.

In one of those visits related to a national holiday, I observed people “talking” to the pictures of their deceased family members, as if they could hear them. I have total respect for their religious beliefs, but that scene, repeating time after time before my eyes lit up a “And if…” in my mind. More precisely, “And if dead people could come back from their rest and interact with the living ones through their pictures?”

That thought was enough to spark an entire set of possibilities in my imagination—fictional ones, of course.

And from a simple glimpse at those possibilities, I came up with one of the most emotional chapters in my book Johnny Rikkens’ Fantastic Worlds. The chapter is called The Braves’ Day, and in it, the apprentices and members of the Bhravegarv Academy go to the cemetery on a day—the only day in the year—that the souls of the people buried there can come back from their eternal resting place and interact with the living through their headstone pictures.

I think it would be great if it existed in real life. Just imagine being able to talk with the people you love and hear their voices, their laughs, and see the brightness of their eyes. Oh, you can do it! So do it before it is too late.

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