ENERGY HAS A foreverness that completely transcends humanity’s knowledge, explains Salacia, the mermaid, in episode 14 of Martyn le Roux’s serialised podcast, Die Soutwaterheks, which you can find here. She gets Frans and his sea buddies to remember the lessons of Sunday School and understand them differently, as they sit around the table with their coffees, flabbergasted.

It’s a tale of God, life and the universe in language and rhythms so far beyond their ken, and yet so familiar. About the agelessness of energy and original sins that have little to do with the bible stories children are told to fill a gap in their western religious education. This is about the arrogance of man and the greed of possession. It’s about parables of the ilk of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and real characters of the ilk of Adolf Hitler.

While the content of this episode is bamboozling and teetering on dystopian cliffs, there’s not much direct action in it, other than the appearance of a man who needs more explanation, and appreciative ‘wows’ and gasps from Frans and his friends, but tricks and demonstrations of energy could attract unwarranted attention, if not expenses unanticipated. The whole bar-visiting community is aware of Salacia now, on some subliminal level. Is this good or bad? Tune in for the next review, next Monday.

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 14 Alpha en Omega (Alpha and Omega) 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 Jurgen Bosman, Francois Coertze, Elzahn Dorfling, Annette Havenga, Pieter Theron and Riaan Visman. It is available here.