By J.B. Polk
Denis Burbank checked and rechecked his canvas rucksack decorated with what seemed like a zillion pockets and zippers to ensure he had everything he’d need during the trip. The rock hammer. The reactive strips to measure the levels of salinity in the lake. The Ziploc bags and glass tubes to put samples in. The pincers to pick up salt crystals without damaging their snowflake-like structure were also in place. So was his Canon EOS (retail price US$3,000) and his notebook with the silver Cross pen Sandra, his wife, had given him for his 50th birthday.
Burbank knew that the Bolivian authorities routinely refused to let foreign geologists ramble about taking samples of lithium, described by their constitution as a strategic mineral. So, when a group of investors in La Paz paid for his ticket and invited him to lecture on the mineral’s potential, he jumped at the opportunity, aware it was probably his only chance to visit the Uyuni deposits.
A day later, he managed to book a Boliviana de Aviación flight that would give him less than 24 hours in the salt flats. When asked about the purpose of his visit, Burbank swallowed hard, held his breath for a full minute, then stammered: tourism. He could feel a trickle of sweat roll down his spine, but the airport official smiled, handed him back the passport, and shouted: next!
For several decades now, lithium had been the darling child of the scientific and industrial communities: talked about, investigated, and most of the time, the brunt of speculations as to its merits, which Burbank knew were many. It was a mineral present in seawater, spodumene, petalite rocks, and brine all over the world but in such small quantities that its exploitation was not feasible. Only here, in one corner of the so-called Lithium Triangle, was it abundant enough to commercially mine it at a very low cost. Billions of gallons of brine sloshed under the Altiplano in quantities hard to imagine. It was enough to drill a hole, let the brine sit in ponds for twelve months, get the sun to dry off the water then process the sparkling salts, which were later placed in batteries of all types and sizes.
So here he was, professor of applied geohydrology, most likely the future head of the US Geological Survey, ready to look at the immense salt lake nine times the size of Los Angeles. But be honest, all he would have time to explore was a piece of land in size resembling a small suburban garden, like the one behind his own house.
He looked out of the jeep’s window, taking him to the lake, and contemplated the stark contrast between the surrounding poverty and the luxury of the Salt Palace where he was staying. As the off-roader lumbered along the earthen track, ramshackle adobe buildings covered by zinc planks and weighted down by stones sprang before his eyes like a movie played at low speed.
Everything was eerily silent – no music blaring from transistor radios, no car horns, no human conversations as if time didn’t exist here or as if clocks measured it differently. A few Indigenous women proudly displaying their black braids topped by stiff bowler hats quietly cooked steaming concoctions in tin pots on open fires.
Burbank was jolted out of his reverie when the jeep came to a halt with gears grinding. Just ahead of him, there was the vast salt lake. Known among the scientific community as the Salar, it melted into the cobalt blue of the sky.
The driver, a friendly middle-aged Bolivian with a weather-beaten face and a gold tooth which he tended to flash when he smiled, looked over his shoulder and said in broken English:
“We here. You stay two hours, and I pick you up at twelve. Not go far! You get lost or worse….”
His pleasant face turned serious. He crossed himself and spat out the open window as if expelling a bitter-tasting curse.
“Strange thing happen here, so no crossing to other side. Strange and terrible. People dead or people missing. So no crossing fence. Stay this side road,” he warned.
Burbank nodded several times like the famous head-bobbing velvet bulldogs, one of which his father used to keep on the dashboard of his Mustang in the early seventies.
The driver was not the first person warning him to stay away from the part of the lake fenced off by a barbed wire suspended between wooden stakes and decorated with bright blue, green, and red ribbons, which now flapped furiously in the wind like prophetic crows.
“Make sure you stay away from the Dead Man’s Lake,” the pretty receptionist in the hotel told him in the morning after she’d heard he was going to the Salar.
The badge on her moss-green uniform said her name was Aracely.
“What’s the Dead Man’s Lake?” he’d asked, handing her the old-fashioned key dangling from a piece of wood shaped like a pink flamingo.
“It’s part of the flats no one is allowed to go to,” she smiled sweetly. Burbank noticed that, like most Bolivians, old and young, rich or poor, she sported a gold incrustation between the left canine and the first premolar.
“Weird stuff happens there,” she whispered.
“Visitors either never come back, or they come completely changed. Crazy like,” she opened her own eyes wide as if to illustrate the craziness that took hold of those who failed to obey the warnings.
“How do they say it in your movies?” she thought for a while, searching for the right word.
“Wacky!” she said and laughed, but without mirth. Burbank saw her shudder as if a sudden cold draft wrapped her slim shoulders.
“So, make sure you stay on the right side of the road. We want you back, safe and sound!” she smiled again and hung the key on a hook behind her.
As a scientist, Burbank didn’t believe in old wives’ tales. It was not the first time he’d heard rumours spread by the locals to keep people out of places they were not supposed to visit. Sometimes, because they were indigenous burial grounds. Sometimes, it added to the mystery of the site. And sometimes, just the opposite – to attract more tourists. Because everyone loved secrets, right? He saw no harm in such stories and decided to pay no heed to the warnings.
***
U could feel something move. Very faintly at first, but unmistakably there was some movement. Yes. There it was again. And a sound. The hum of an engine. The screech of tires. Voices. Human voices. U could smell burnt petrol. And the aroma of pumping, living blood and plasma.
“Two of them,” U shuddered with anticipation.
“I can feel them as clearly as if they were right by me!”
“But…will they come nearer? Will they cross the fence? Will they?!!”
U’s excitement mounted as he felt the noises grow stronger.
He hoped they’d come close enough for him to move. That was all he needed. Get them close enough for just one move! He could be quick. Others had done it before him, and so could he.
And then U would be free! On his way back to his colony. Back home.
***
Burbank watched the jeep drive off with a cloud of red dust trailing behind it like a Sahara sandstorm. Despite the sun bearing down with force, it was cold, barely above 5 degrees Celsius at this early hour. He put the rucksack on the ground gazing around.
The snow-white salt and the cobalt water (or was it already the sky?) winked at him. The place was so vast that he was sure it could be seen from space. He realized now why it was called the World’s Largest Mirror. There was no divide between the sky and the land as the few clouds scuttling above reflected in the water, making it look like an enormous looking glass with no visible boundaries.
“It could be a landing site for intergalactic spaceships. Wouldn’t it be a hoot to find an extraplanetary form of life in this lifeless desert? Something that wouldn’t be burned to a crisp by the salt and frozen to an icicle by the cold?” he chuckled, then approached the edge of the Salar in three strides. He had only two hours and was eager to start.
Crackle…crackle…crack … The salt crunched under his steel-toed work boots. It was akin to walking on freshly frozen water in his native Colorado.
Walking required effort; at an altitude of more than 3,600 meters above sea level, every step was twice as difficult. He took a deep breath, trying to fill his lungs with the thin oxygen, then kept going towards a small brine puddle shimmering amongst the white expanse.
“My first sampling spot,” he decided.
The brine was light blue and thick. It contained a lot of salt and probably other minerals such as potash, borax, and halite, plus some red dust from the road stirred by passing cars and deposited there.
Burbank unzipped a rucksack pocket taking out a rock chisel and a couple of tubes with rubber stoppers. He would chip away some pieces, gather two samples, then go to the next pool that looked bigger and brighter than this one.
“It probably emerged with last night’s mist.”
He drew the brine into a syringe and squirted it into the tubes.
He was excited about spending the next two hours in a place he’d heard so much about but which he had thought he’d never visit. He had to make the most of the trip because an opportunity like this came once in a lifetime!
***
U was disappointed. After the initial joy of hearing voices and sensing human warmth, he realized the sounds had retreated. Even the engine noise and the gear clatter died down as the vehicle seemed to have driven off. U was not only frustrated but also angry! How long had it been since he last had the chance to leave this place? He could not tell because human time was not something he’d ever learnt or cared to evaluate.
U thrashed with indignation. He didn’t want to spend another moment in this damn salt lake where nothing happened. He was also aware that his energy was dwindling. It seemed like it had been millennia since he’d been fixing the nitrogen in the soil by converting N2 gas to ammonia, but the reserves were now close to zero. He urgently needed a human or animal gut to break down and ferment some real food to get a hefty dose of nutrients. If no adequate host appeared, he’d expire like the ship’s engine that had brought him here. That’s what happened to the other mono-cells – P and K. They just went off like old batteries with no juice.
U couldn’t let that happen! U wanted to live! U wanted to go back home!
***
Burbank could tell it was nearly noon from the slant of the sun. The driver would come back soon to pick him up. He’d collected nineteen samples from different pools and stacked them neatly in a metal holder. There was one unfilled tube, the space beckoning him with reproach to make one last effort.
He glanced across the Salar and noticed that the next puddle was approximately two hundred meters away. Quite far in this oxygen-deprived area. He could walk there, get the sample, then return to the road before the driver arrived. He was slightly out of breath but was sure he could make it.
He then looked at the fence with the flapping ribbons, his heart accelerating. For a moment, he felt that something, or someone, was calling to him. Someone was trying to send him a message.
“And what if…” a thought cruised through his mind.
“Come on, Denis; you are a scientist. A man of facts. You don’t believe in that mumbo jumbo about the Dead Man’s Lake, do you? You might find something you’ve never seen before. Perhaps that’s why the locals tell tourists to keep away. All you need to do is to crawl under the wire and extract a sample!”
He zipped up the side pocket of the rucksack, slinging it over his shoulder.
***
There it was again! The vibrato of footsteps. The crunch of the salt. The delicious scent of sweat and human plasma. U’s excitement reignited as he felt the steps approach steadily. No hesitation…. Whoever it was, was coming his way!
“Come on! Come on! “U urged the human leading him to the place where he’d spent the last millennium. Or more. Initially, with others who’d been on the ship when it’d crashed.
He could still remember X and W and less clearly T, Q, and Y. At first, like all microorganisms, his companions consumed everything around them- sunlight, sulfur, scraps of protein blown in by the wind. They even consumed each other. But eventually, there was nothing more to consume. Some were lucky to find a host and leave. U was the last one in the place humans called the Dead Man’s Lake.
It might be his only chance! U concentrated hard trying to convey positive vibes, send an invitation to the person who might, just might, become his host and take him away from this place!
***
“Damn it!” Burbank swore as the sleeve of his khaki shirt caught on the barbed wire as he crawled under it.
He wiggled and managed to free it, then heaved the backpack to the other side, where it landed with a thud.
“I hope the tubes are OK!” he exclaimed.
The wind seemed to have picked up, making the ribbons flap frantically as if warning him to change his mind and return to the road.
“C’mon Denis! You know better than that!” he chided himself.
“Legends. Just local legends. Like the one about the Guatemalan volcano God who craves human flesh. Or the one about the skulls in Mexican cenotes said to have belonged to sacrificial virgins.”
He looked towards the horizon to see if he could spot the red cloud of dust announcing the arrival of the jeep. There was none.
“A clear sign I should get a sample!”
To his left, he noticed a shallow pool with incredibly transparent water. It looked more like spring water than brine.
“Interesting,” he muttered and moved closer.
“Little or no saline content. And no contamination, either. As pure as nothing I’ve ever seen. I wonder why?”
He pulled out the last glass tube removing the rubber stopper, then did a double take as something seemed to stir in the water. Something like a teeny tiny tadpole. He rubbed his eyes.
“A trick of the light,” he thought.
“Not even the most primitive microbe could survive in this environment!”
He bent down, extracted the syringe then prepared the tube.
“I have a feeling this is going to be the discovery of the century,” he told himself, then joyfully whistled Bowie’s “Space Oddity.”
And that was the last thing he did consciously.
***
The human was approaching! He was so near that his smell made U dizzy with craving. The aroma was rich, saturated with the iron atoms flowing in his blood. He was a perfect host to recover his energy before he decided what to do next. Try to find a landing site of which he knew there were many around, and get back home or symbiotically exist in the human host for a while… It didn’t matter now. He’d think about it later.
The ground crackled as the human approached. Three steps away. Two. One…Jump!
***
The Bolivian driver’s name was Carlos Mamani, a surname so common in this part of the world that it seemed all the people living here were related. As he approached, he spotted a figure in the middle of the road. He stepped on the accelerator, revving the engine that spewed out a growly noise of straining metal.
“Looks like the guy paid attention to the warning. When they don’t, it usually ends up in tears,” he muttered, then drove the last three hundred meters at a steady rhythm.
The American resembled a salt statue against the red background of the road. He was staring directly ahead of him, past the jeep, past the horizon. Mamani could see that he was hatless; the rucksack was open, its contents spilling. His limbs were rigid, the khaki shirt missing a button at the neck, the left sleeve torn at the elbow. A trickle of blood oozed from a superficial flesh wound on his cheek, but he didn’t seem to notice. He just stood there; the eyes glazed over. Blank. Or scared, maybe.
Mamani stopped, his fingers glued to the steering wheel. He tried to shift them to the gear stick but couldn’t. The American’s gaze held him captive.
Mamani’s jaw twitched, a thread of saliva dribbling from his lips, yet he could not lift his arm and wipe it off. His muscles were frozen like the salt crystals in the lake. He could only watch as the foreigner came closer and effortlessly extricated him from the car seat through the open window, then threw him onto the red dust.
Mamani didn’t resist. He knew the man had stumbled upon something in the Dead Man’s Lake. What it was, he had no wish to find out. He watched with resignation as the jeep careened along the road speeding towards Uyuni. He was sure it was the last he’d see of his vehicle. And of the man. And he was glad.
J.B. Polk, Polish by birth. First story short-listed for the Irish Independent/Hennessy Awards, Ireland, 1996. Since she went back to writing in 2020, more than 90 of her stories, flash fiction and non-fiction, have been accepted for publication. She has recently won 1st prize in the International Human Rights Arts Movement literary contest for her story about Victor Jara, a Chilean folk songwriter, and an honorary mention for her first-ever story written in Spanish in the Teresa Hamel Short Story Competition.