What does it take for you to shelve your own values and leap in the path of a proverbial speeding truck for the sake of taking a shot at helping someone else? In episode 20 of Martyn le Roux’s serialised podcast, Die Soutwaterheks, our friends get to understand the value of friendship, the difficulty of letting go and the complexity of risking everything.

It’s an episode as much about loss and the celebration of life as it is about getting under the plans of the ‘Men in Black’ to save Salacia’s sister, Bianca. But it’s also about the thrill of being a desperado even if you’re just an ordinary fisherman – or a woman who never gets to be at the bleeding edge of adventure because of gender determined stereotypes.

It’s a cliffhanger of an episode in which we see the men mobilising for complicated and secret action, but we also get to see Belinda (Annette Havenga) showing her own steel as a feisty individual who won’t cow to the whims of (even) the man she loves as it demonstrates her empathy for (even) the man she fears. It’s here too, where we experience Salacia (Elzahn Dorfling) as a creature of empathy and dignity, who knows how to choose the right words in the face of the ineffable.

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 20 “’n Man met ‘n Plan” (A Man with a Plan) 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, Deon Botha, Francois Coertze, Elzahn Dorfling, Annette Havenga, Pieter Theron and Riaan Visman. It is available here.