DEAD MAN'S LAKE

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 was aware that Bolivian officials habitually refused to allow foreign geologists to collect samples of lithium, classified as a strategic mineral under their constitution. So, when a group of investors in La Paz paid for his flight and invited him to speak about the mineral's potential, he leaped at the chance, knowing it was likely his only chance to visit the Uyuni deposits. He spent weeks preparing his presentation, which emphasized the economic benefits of lithium extraction as well as the need for sustainable mining operations—the topic he was passionate about.

One day later, he successfully secured a Boliviana de Aviación flight that would allow him less than 24 hours in the salt flats. When questioned about the reason for his visit, Burbank took a deep breath, paused for a moment, and then replied hesitantly: tourism. He had heard stories of other scientists detained while conducting research in the area, so he decided it was best to keep his true intentions private. He felt a trickle of sweat sliding down his spine, his upper lip glistening with anxiety, but the airport official smiled, flashing a gold tooth, returned his passport, and called out, Next!

For several decades, lithium had been the favored subject of the scientific and industrial communities: talked about, researched, and frequently the focus of debate over its numerous advantages, which Burbank recognized were substantial. It was a mineral found in seawater, spodumene, petalite rocks, and brine globally, but in such minimal quantities that its extraction was impractical. It was only in this specific region of the Lithium Triangle that it was sufficiently abundant for commercial mining at a minimal cost. Billions of gallons of brine sloshed beneath the Altiplano in unimaginable volumes. It was enough to drill a hole, let the brine sit in ponds for twelve months, wait for the sun to dry off the water, and then process the sparkling salts, which were later placed in batteries of all types and sizes. The Big Tech Boss, Elon himself, was said to have his eye on this lithium-rich region, knowing that the demand for batteries would only continue to increase with the rise of electric vehicles and renewable energy sources.

So here he was, a professor of applied geohydrology and 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 to 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. The off-roader lumbered along the earthen track, revealing ramshackle adobe buildings covered by zinc planks and weighed down by stones like a slow-moving movie.

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. In a way, it was like watching an old Wild West movie come to life, with the women resembling characters straight out of a classic Western film. The scene felt frozen in time, offering a glimpse into a world untouched by modernity and filled with traditions passed down through generations. The only thing missing was the sound of horses' hooves trotting down the dusty road, completing the illusion of stepping back in time.

The jeep's grinding gears jolted Burbank out of his reverie. Just ahead of him was the vast salt lake, known among the scientific community as the Salar. It melted into the cobalt blue sky, creating a breathtaking mirage effect that seemed to stretch on for eternity.

The driver, a friendly middle-aged Bolivian with a weather-beaten face, 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. One man come back never the same. Eyes were empty, voice like grave. Doctors said he suffering from trauma. Took him to La Paz and lock him up for good. So no crossing fence. Stay this side of road,” he warned.

Burbank nodded several times, much 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 to warn him to stay away from the part of the lake fenced off by 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 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 Dead Man’s Lake?” he’d asked, handing her the old-fashioned key dangling from a piece of wood shaped like a pink flamingo.

She said with a sweet smile, "It's a part of the flats no one can go to."

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 eyes wide as if to illustrate the craziness that gripped 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 joy. Burbank saw her shudder as if a sudden cold draft had 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 rumors 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—it attracted more tourists. Because everyone loves 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. Movement. Yes. There it was again. And a sound. The hum of an engine. The screech of tires. Voices. Human voices. U could smell burned 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 get closer? 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. The few clouds scuttling above and reflecting in the water made 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 … 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 was rich in salt and likely included other minerals like potash, borax, and halite, along with some red dust from the road that passing cars had stirred and deposited.

Burbank unzipped a rucksack pocket, taking out a rock chisel and a couple of tubes with rubber stoppers. He would chip away at some pieces, gather two samples, and then go to the next pool, which 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 had heard so much about but 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 gear clatter died out 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 learned about 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 fixed 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 suitable host appeared, he would die 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!

***

According to the sun's slant, Burbank could tell it was nearly noon. 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, and then return to the road before the driver arrived. He was slightly out of breath, but he 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, 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 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 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. As he felt the steps approach steadily, U's excitement reignited. 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, he was accompanied by others who had been present on the ship when it 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 left to consume. Some were lucky to find a host and leave. U was the last one in the place humans called Dead Man’s Lake.

It might be his only chance! U concentrated hard, trying to convey positive vibes and 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 scolded 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 jeep's arrival. 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, moving closer.

“Little or no saline content. And no contamination, either. It is as pure as anything I've ever seen. I wonder why?”

He pulled out the last glass tube, removed the rubber stopper, and then did a double take as something appeared 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, and 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.”

That was the last thing he did consciously.

***

The human was approaching! He was so near that his smell made U dizzy with cravings. The aroma was rich, saturated with the iron atoms flowing in his blood. The man with the glass tubes was a perfect host to recover his energy before he decided what to do next. Try to locate 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, Carlos Mamani, had a surname that was common among the population of this region, giving the idea that they were all related. As he approached, he observed someone standing in the middle of the road. He pressed down on the accelerator, revving the engine, which made a growling noise of strained metal.

“Looks like the guy paid attention to the warning. When they don’t, it usually ends up in tears,” he muttered to himself, then drove the last three hundred meters at a steady rhythm.

The American looked like a salt statue against the road's red background. He was staring directly ahead of him, past the Jeep, past the horizon. Mamani could see that he was hatless. His limbs were rigid, the khaki shirt missing a button at the neck and the left sleeve torn at the elbow. His rucksack was open, its contents spilling. A trickle of blood oozed from a superficial flesh wound on his cheek, but he didn’t seem to notice. He just stood there, his eyes glazed over. Blank. Or scared, maybe. Or downright crazy.

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.

The Bolivian’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, effortlessly removed him from the car seat through the open window, and then threw him into the red dust.

Mamani didn’t resist. He knew the man had stumbled upon something in Dead Man’s Lake. He had no desire to find out what it was. 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.

THE END

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