SO, THERE’S A mermaid in your kitchen. With this as a clear fact, how on earth do you get around the pragmatic world as we know it without being summarily confined to a proverbial straitjacket? Belinda (Annette Havenga), Frans’s loyal secretary experiences the sharp end of this scenario with her boyfriend, Richard in episode 12 of Martyn le Roux’s serialised podcast, Die Soutwaterheks, which you can find here.

It’s an episode which is a little of this and a touch of that, closing some gaps in the tale so far. There’s the issue of feeding and clothing Salacia (Elzahn Dorfling) and giving her currency in our world without drawing unwarranted attention to her. It’s about calling spades, spades and understanding the presence of other fishes in the sea – in the literal as well as the idiomatic sense – and it is about Frans beginning to see something that has been hiding in plain sight from him, for some time.

A little wooden in the give and take between two lovers who cannot reveal enough in order to see eye to eye, it also offers a double-sided and rather nifty balance to secrets which cannot be revealed at any cost, before their time. Will Frans and Belinda successfully disguise Salacia so that those scary authorities will leave her alone? Will Richard rear his angry head in the manner he has threatened to? The plot thickens, and next week’s issue may reveal more.  

Die Soutwaterheks has 25 chapters: Watch this space for consecutive reviews! Recorded and released independently online, in both MP3 and MP4 formats, in Afrikaans with bits of English, this tale, told in individual episodes is accessible through various links.

• Die Soutwaterheks: Episode 12 Narsissme en Liefde (Narcissism and Love) is written by Martyn Le Roux. Directed by Martyn Le Roux, and featuring technical input and sound research by Arné von Molledorf and Martyn Le Roux, and music by Yolanda Strauss and David Muller, it is performed by Francois Coertze, Elzahn Dorfling, Annette Havenga and David Muller. It is available here.