Ladies and gentlemen, this is magical realism:

"That was during the time the Greek ship arrived," she said. "It was a crew of madmem who made the women happy and didn't pay them with money but with sponges, living sponges that later on walked about the houses moaning like patients in a hospital and making the children cry so that they could drink the tears."
-Gabriel García Márquez, "The Incredible and Sad Tale of Innocent Erendira and Her Heartless Grandmother"