In the town of Vientos Eternos, where the wind spoke in whispers and time flowed like honey, lived a peculiar merchant named Federico who sold electric fans that could produce any wind from human history. His shop, a crooked building that seemed to defy gravity, housed thousands of fans arranged in spiraling patterns across its impossibly vast interior.

“This one,” Federico would say to customers, his eyes gleaming with mischief, “contains the last breath of Napoleon Bonaparte.” Or, “That fan there holds the winds that pushed Columbus across the Atlantic.”

María Elena, a frequent visitor who had never purchased anything, came to his shop every Sunday after mass. Her silver hair moved in impossible ways, as if underwater, even when there was no breeze.

“Tell me, Federico,” she said one sweltering afternoon, “do you have a fan that can blow away memories?”

Federico’s weathered face crinkled with interest. “Memories of what kind, my dear?”

“The kind that keep you awake for forty years,” she replied, her voice carrying the weight of countless sleepless nights.

Federico disappeared into the labyrinth of his shop, returning with a small, rusted fan that looked ordinary except for the faint blue glow emanating from its center. “This one,” he said, “contains the winds of forgetting. But remember, María Elena, some memories are like roots – pull them out, and the whole tree might die.”

She bought the fan despite his warning, paying with a handful of butterfly wings that had turned to gold coins mid-flight. That night, María Elena sat before the fan, letting its ethereal breeze wash over her. As promised, her memories began to fade – first the painful ones, then the joyful ones, until she could no longer remember why she had wanted to forget in the first place.

When Federico visited her house the next morning, he found María Elena sitting in her rocking chair, her silver hair now stark white, her eyes vacant as a newborn’s. The fan lay broken at her feet, its blades twisted into impossible shapes.

“I warned you,” Federico whispered to her empty shell. “The price of forgetting is remembering nothing at all.”

In the years that followed, the town of Vientos Eternos would whisper about the woman who traded her entire life for a moment’s peace. Federico continued selling his magical fans, but now each came with a small plaque that read: “The winds of the past are not meant to be controlled, only witnessed.”

María Elena still visits his shop every Sunday after mass, though she no longer knows why. She stares at the fans with blank fascination, while Federico watches her with eyes full of regret, knowing that somewhere in the swirling currents of his supernatural merchandise, her memories continue to spin, waiting for an owner who will never claim them again.