The old man is sitting over the shore, on the stony ground. He observes with a tired face the big lake that surrounds his island.

Yes. He owns an island.

His name is Julián Santa Ana. He lives in Xochimilco, a suburb of Mexico City. It is famous for containing a huge lake, permanently navigated by beautiful and large canoes that serve as tourist restaurants and unusual flower shops. A place of incredible beauty. Many small, wild islands called Chinampas, usually uninhabited, stand out of the water.

He owns one of them. He has lived there for fifty years. He moved in there, seeking to heal his heart, broken by a love that left him for another man. He lived in solitude, planting cereals and flowers that he sold in a nearby town, accompanied only by his memories and the silence of his small world surrounded by water.

Now, decades later, he is no longer alone on his island. The voices make him company. The shadows that follow him all the time, watching from the edge of his field of view, and also his dolls.

Dolls.

Hundreds of them. Decapitated, dismembered and hung on each tree, creating a kind of cursed forest. Old and dirty. Broken, one-eyed. Their gaze fixed at front or bottom, in a silent act of aberrant vigilance, or perhaps a testimony for an unspeakable sin.

Julián remembers how he found the first doll, floating on the waters. He did it right after he found the body of a young girl on the shore of his lonely island. Drowned. A pale girl. Very young, very thin, very beautiful.

So very beautiful. Like a mermaid.

The man began to hear the voices afterwards. Wailing in the wind, vague accusations from the void. Whispers, so desperate to tell him secrets that nobody is supposed to know.

Then the shadows came.

Hiding in the corners of his humble wooden house. Spilling from the ceiling and sprouting from the floor. Amorphous or vaguely human. Wanting to grab hold of his flesh, or his spirit, perhaps. Maybe hungry for what they once had and now lacked.

The old man, desperate, placed the first doll one day. Then another, and another. They surrounded the island from the trees near the water, and then in those near his home. The shadows seemed to shy away from them, annoyed. The whispers found them frightening.

Agostina is his favorite doll. The most powerful of them. She can make miracles, if asked in a good way. But she can also hurt you if you make her angry.

Years of shadows and voices. Of plastic eyes and frozen smiles. Of terrible guardians and judges. Dirty custodians for his little jail of memories. Maybe owning themselves a mysterious spirit.

So many years of it all.

Recently, Julián has seen something else.

A mermaid.

It looks like the girl who came to leave her soul on his island. She smiles. Julián is sure she wants to take him with her, although he does not know why. The voices have never left him, nor the shadows. Not completely.

Now, on that same shore, after fifty years of living that way, under the attentive gaze and protection, or perhaps custody, of his dolls, he feels finally ready.

Ready to follow the shadows. To pay attention to the voices. Ready to go with the pale siren.

There she is. She smiles.

This time, he smiles too.

---

Julián Santa Ana died of a heart failure in 2001. His nephew has inherited the island and keeps it intact. Now it is visited by thousands of tourists every year.

The dolls are still there, just as Julián left them.

Also the voices and shadows, they say.

Agostina still receives offerings and makes miracles.

Credits: Cindy Vasko / #realstory

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