I
The Island of Dolls -Just south of Mexico City, between the canals of Xochimico. 1950s.
Don Marino was a fall down drunk. It wasn’t that he was addicted to the bottle because of a need of liquid courage or to have his inhibitions run wild and free. It was misery. Down and out misery. An escape. Married life and having children and a family were not a matter of choice. It was not a way of life. It was customary. Mandatory. Why, who would dare dream of a life that defied convention? Don Marino yearned for freedom.
Memories of his mother flooded his mind. Her beauty. Her delicate nature. Her chain-smoking. Her clothes making. How he loved to see her make clothing and handle garments. Mother would know he was watching her sew as she tried to make an extra wage. He’ll never forget that time, she called to him at the sewing machine with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth. Butterflies gnawed at his stomach. Boys aren’t supposed to want to make dresses. “Come here. Learn the double stitch.” He slowly stepped to her. Sarcasm? No not from his mother. Tears filled his eyes as he grabbed her from behind and gave a hug as strong as little boy could. “Fuck what people think. If you want to stitch you stitch but if you are going to learn how to sew you better do it right. Perfect.” He pulled up a seat by his mother. He continued to learn until he met…her. Society demands. Mother hated her. Mother wanted her son happy – it meant more than convention. He meant more than convention.
Perhaps it was a broken heart knowing her sons misery that led to her early demise. At least, that was what he would always believe. A dressmaker? An artist? A designer? No guardian angel to protect him. Marino's dreams died with her. The last thing he ever stitched was the gown she wore in her pine casket. He became a mortician as a trade but could not, could not…not his mother.
After fighting with his wife - her demanding nature foreign to him - to spend more time with their daughter and less time at the bar he was furthermore driven to hit the local dive and drink. A bandaid but the wound would never heal.
He was in a complete stupor, mindless with flashes of memory and recall, after last call. He wasn’t drunk enough to feel like going home. He hated home. He hated life. He couldn’t forget that. Rather than wobble home on unsteady feet, Marino headed to the marina, took a boat and drifted down the canals.
Marino yelled at the sky words intended for his wife but with no ear to hear. As a response he heard a thud that had made him fall back. Marino crawled to the front of the boat, leaned forward and peered at what the boat had hit.
Don Marino gasped, made the sign of the cross and looked at the body of a small child floating in the water, face down – hair gracefully flowing with the ripples.
Marino screamed, “I will wake you up. I will bring you back” and yanked the child as if his own into the boat and started for the nearby island. He lifted her body, lay her on the land and attempted to pump the water out of her lungs. Through the eyes of a drunk there was hope. Rescuing her was futile seeing how the little girl had been decayed beneath the water – mute testimony was the white in her eyes and the gnawed skin by critters. Marino could not last a second longer. There was only so much someone fueled on the drink can stand. He collapsed next to her body
Don Marino woke up after passing out drunk. The night before were mere squares of a quilt it took time to stitch together as he rolled over and blearily looked at the dead little girl beside him – a puddle beneath her saturated into the grass. He screamed, still piecing together the entire evening in fragments. He had dealt with the dead before but a child, so young. Did he do this? Was he responsible?
Post drunkenness swelled up in his entire body and mind – depression, dry mouth and worst of all…regret…regret her never learned from all those other nights before at the bar. But things were clearer now though the mind was loopy. His head ached and tears poured down his eyes like a faucet leaking water.
Marino was in no proper state of mind to know what to do. Had he killed her in the night? Had he drowned her? The drink made his guilt hold no bound over him. Don Marino was convinced her had murdered the little girl. He was certain after the voice, the voice of the sweet angel spoke to him.
Things were no longer ordinary.
This little dead girl had a message. It was as though her spirit conveyed the message through the white pupils of her eyes.
“I can’t see.”
The little girl “told him”. He nodded agreeably as if he had known what to do. The drink was wearing off. His body needed a drink. He trembled, cried and tremor. Addiction. Withdrawal. Marino’s mind was not on the alcohol. The requests of the deceased took precedence. Fear rapt him. The child’s commands MUST be granted.
Atonement? Madness? The spirits? As in need of a shot he lost all sense of right and wrong, a thief, a drunk. He hurried back into the boat and roe down back into town.
Don Marino had declined from grief and guilt into a compulsion to atone. Without conscience he asked the nearest child, a little girl kicking stones into the water, to come with him to meet and play with his “blind daughter”. The little girl Patricia, followed - a good soul. A good girl. Don Marino mercilessly hit her on the head with a rock when they reached the coast of the island. Thereafter, he gouged Patricia’s eyes out with his bare hands for the nameless little girl to repair his new “daughter”. Little Patricia lost her sight but did not die. She screamed wildly, covering her sockets as blood profuse.
“I need new, skin, and teeth.”
Patricia was mutilated alive for the love of the nameless child, skinned and and tortured by Don Marino with his bare hands and some stones.
Not too soon thereafter he heard Patricia and the little girl speaking to each other.
He heard Patricia say, “Papa, I need new skin…”
The gruesome cycle was unending with the local children. Patricia wanted a baby sister to play with and eventually brothers. Marino preserved and repaired his daughters, his sons, his “dolls”. Spoiling them. Babies were snatched. He heard their cries and adhered to his babies’ needs.
Don Marinos descent grew boundless. Tourists went missing. Adult tourists. “Outsiders” were not given a chance but one officer conceded to search as an American insisted.
He reached the island of dolls.
The officer was aghast and believed firmly that the devils work had been at play. Word of these Canals had spread before in ill light. The Officer found Don Marino staring at a “doll” and ensuing a conversation with her. No doubt, the officer had, that this was the work of the devil. All the children were on display throughout the hut that Marino had built. Dolls preserved, his children. Don Marino smiled when he was “alerted” that a guest had arrived.
A deal with the devil was made. Shock, fear, and a painstaking hate for the tourists forged the deal.
“Get rid of the tourists, leave our people alone and we will turn an eye. But do not arouse suspicion.” He was afraid though he was convinced by messages passed from a daughter via Don Marino’s lips, “You are a man of the law. There will no longer be bloodshed of our people but blood must be spilt. You are to protect and serve our people always. This is the only way to protect them. Spread the word that our people are safe. There was nothing to see here.” Then the officer was sorely convinced when Don Marino added, “Tell that American there was nothing to see here.”
Certain tourists were lured there by the locals. Leave ‘em to Don Marino who would skin alive, pluck teeth and eyes and all necessary to create “people”. More family.
Eventually he built a larger home there for his family. He was the man of the house.
It was his duty to provide shelter for the “family” of dolls made from human body parts. It seemed like a never ending cycle. And that was the deal, we leave you alone and you get rid of the tourists.
He spoke to his victims tied in a chair answering questions and conducting conversations only he heard. He didn’t hear his victims. He talked on as if they were answering his questions – a one man conversation.
Their voices fell on deaf ears.
II
Years later, in the USA, Robert nearing eight years old had an unstable childhood. He had no friends and could not socialize. He was given a doll to be a playmate. A life size doll. His grandmother found it and shipped to them…from Mexico’s famed Island Of Dolls. She found one in a storefront.
A bond was forged. Robert oddly treated his playmate as if it were alive. He fed it and talked to it all through the night. The neighbors began talking about the odd boy who never left the house and whose only friend was a doll. He had the palest skin that hadn’t seen the light of day ordinarily and dark circles rimmed his eyes.
Robert’s father did not approve of his child who treated the doll as though alive. In actuality he didn’t care. He wanted to impress the neighbors, not give them reason for gossip. their opinions mattered. Robert’s mother didn’t mind and supported her child. “He’s only a child. Leave him alone.” She would tell her husband.
One night, no special than any other, Robert placed his ear next to the dolls and heard something; a truth only privy to children and gasped.
“What did he tell you Robert?”
“Only kids can know mom.” He nearly whimpered.
When things went wrong and mischief was amiss, it looked like Robert was the culprit. Robert would insist it was the living doll to blame. Then it was settled. Robert was sent to military school at a tender young age, because of his attachment to the doll.
Not too long thereafter, his Father died under mysterious circumstances – found with a broken neck at the bottom of a stairwell.
Many years after that, an adult Robert wanted to introduce his wife, Sara to his mother. He opened the door only to discover his mother dead within the past 24 hours, the forensics later assessed. Robert had inherited his childhood home and hoped to raise a family there.
In the process of unpacking, Sara began seeing a shadow of a child. It haunted her to the brink. Robert did not believe her. “How can we have a child when you act like one?” He’d say to her. Tension was ongoing. Trying to salvage their marriage, Pam suggests a vacation in Mexico.
III
“Sara? No woman named Sara came here.” Someone translated to Robert.
Aggravated, Robert snapped, “We were just eating here. She went to use the restroom and she never came back! I checked the restroom she’s not there!”
After translating Robert the two Mexican men chuckled a great deal, this only angered Robert.
“Oh it is nothing. He said he thinks she left you.”
“FUCK YOU!” he shouted into their faces. He knew it wasn’t all they said. Something more gave him unease. It was this place. It was memories he could not weave as though told tales of it before. “I bought you a doll Robert! It’s from Doll Island in Mexico!”
“I want to go to Doll Island.” He said to the man translating. “Sure!” he enthusiastically volunteered. There was the famed Doll Island but to the left was DOLL ISLAND. He brought him all right. It was a one way ride. “Wait! Wait!” Robert screamed as the chuckling boatman roe off. “Fuckin’ A.” he muttered.
He hesitantly walked into the shed, creepy, he thought, as he pressed forward. He had faced war before. He wasn’t afraid of a doll. He feared the fate of Sara and kept wondering why he was drawn here.
He heard a woman whimpering. Sara! He looked inside first and listened before bursting inside without a plan. He naturally assessed his surroundings as a militant for the sake of Sara.
Don Marino had shoved Sara in a cage having a one way conversation with her. He was busy with another tourist at the moment. Sara saw the dolls, all the creepy dolls of assorted sizes and based on what he was doing to his latest victim who whimpered, she understood his “artistry”. Sara cried as a violent scream erupted from a victim. Blood poured down off the workbench beside a sewing machine. Bloodloss. Robert shook his head. There was nothing he could do to help.
We want what dolls never have - to play a game where the humans are the dolls whose fates and souls are playthings. Only children could know. He was no longer a child but felt fear as one and defied it with courage.
That recall, that whisper was enough to prompt Robert to rush in and punch the life out of a decrepit Don Marino.
Who will be their father? Who will take care of them? SOMEONE had to.
They whispered a deal to Robert, he paid no attention and removed his wife from that cage. She wanted to hug him. “No time.”
They found Don Marino’s boat hidden under brush and speedily hopped in and paddled away from that island.
Nearing escape, Sara screamed from the top of her lungs at the sight before her. Robert roe even faster. He couldn’t calm her down. “Shhh. Let’s get the fuck out of here now. Don’t let anyone hear us. We need to get out alive. Just stay quiet.” He commanded in a militant authoritative tone.
As unsavory as it was to see, Sara studied every island on the canal they passed. Every island on the canal had preserved adults. It seemed as though they were immortalized to remain in a static existence eternally so long as Don Marino, the mortician, the artist, filled the islands with huge happy families. Canals of the preserved and taxidermied in life-like positions. The mortician did not hear what any sane ear can comprehend. He comprehended what the voices of his happy large family were saying.
Robert began to.
“Do we have a deal?”
He moved even faster. Suppress it. Don’t give in. You are stronger than this.
Some of the preserved slowly stood up. Some turned to him. They looked at them.
It was all a matter of how fast he could row.
