Come On In, The Water’s Fine- Harpy & Kraken
Description: Come On In, The Water’s Fine is an annual mermaid fiction anthology podcast! Join us as we celebrate, discuss, and explore these terrifying and beautiful creatures! Season one is a single story told in four parts. Season two is 4 separate episodes, each containing a different two person conversation.
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Transcript
[Bittersweet by Kevin MacLeod begins. Title credit lines are heard over it after the first few seconds.]
SHADE
Come On In, The Water’s Fine
Season 2: Mermaids and Other Monsters
4 different episodes, 4 different conversations
Season 2, episode 1: The Harpy Episode
[Music fades out.]
***
SIREN
Hi.
HARPY
Hi.
SIREN
Hi.
HARPY
HI…Umm… Can I help you?
SIREN
Yes! I mean no. Sorta? Well, ugh. Of course. I’m sorry. You are confused because I talked to YOU which means its up to ME to clarify the topic of conversation and I’m just doing nothing and you have no idea who I am.
HARPY
I… Do know you though. I think.
SIREN
What? Really?
HARPY
Your flock. Your community…
SIREN
My family?
HARPY
Yes. Your family. You’ve all fed from the same ships as my flock a few times. You all lured the ship closer and then we flew up and killed and ate the entrails of those who didn’t jump overboard.
SIREN
Yeah! That’s us. That’s where I’ve seen you too.
HARPY
Hi!
SIREN
Hi! Yeah! Uh. Okay. Ummm. I just… ok. I don’t know how to start this so I’m just gonna say it. I just wanted to tell you that I love your voice.
HARPY
Really?
SIREN
I think it’s possibly one of the most beautiful voices I’ve ever heard.
HARPY
Thank you! And while we’re handing out compliments, I love your voice.
SIREN
Wow. Really?
HARPY
I’m serious. I’ve heard you sing. It’s so light and ethereal. No matter how close you are it feels like you’re too far away. It’s mesmerizing.
SIREN
That is the idea.
HARPY
But the way you do it is different! With other sirens I’ve heard, it’s beautiful and they do lure ships but the effect is different. With most I hear it’s like trying to quench thirst with salt water, no matter how much you drink, no relief and perhaps access to it may increase thirst! The shipboard creatures, the….
SIREN
Humans.
HARPY
Humans? The humans they hear and then they scramble and hurry as if being away from the siren is the greatest torture in the world. But when you sing… it’s as if they’ve just woken from a long sleep and been invited to a great breakfast feast.
SIREN
Yeah. Before I found my family, I mostly travelled and fed alone and… it’s possible to lure an entire ship on your own but ill advised. And if you wanna stay put for a couple hundred years, it’s best if the area you live in doesn’t have a reputation for losing entire ships. So I just started luring one or two from a ship and the humans that are left think it’s just regular misfortune and are none the wiser.
HARPY
Ooh I love that. That’s not really a problem for us. For years, I thought the ship dwellers were migratory, like fish or birds and had to pass us to get back to their birthing place. Why else would they keep passing us? We’re not hiding.
SIREN
Maybe they’re thrill seekers?
HARPY
Well that’s just ridiculous. But not ridiculous enough to be implausible. I get with your family, they can’t really see you until it’s “too late” so if you don’t know what’s getting you, you stay away just in case. But, we’re just out there in full sight! And we don’t eat all of them. Many have lived to tell the tale, the information’s out there.
SIREN
Well… They could just like your voices.
HARPY
Meh.
SIREN
Don’t meh. I literally started this conversation in an attempt to compliment you and your voice! I started a conversation.
HARPY
And that does seem to be a big deal for you.
SIREN
It is a big deal! I’m terrible at conversations. Your voice is amazing. This compliment is not given lightly. Your voice, when you sing, it feels like the entire world has been tilted out of place and I should be falling but I’m not! The world vibrates around me and I feel everything and nothing all at once. It’s consuming. It’s pleasant but that feels like too cavalier a way to describe it. Your voice is magnificent.
HARPY
Thank you. It feels unreal that someone would talk to me just to tell me they like my voice. It makes me feel less alone in loving it myself.
SIREN
Really?
HARPY
Well yeah. Loving my voice is kinda something I have to actively do. And I do love it. I didn’t always love it, I never hated it but I never particularly found joy in it until I sought the joy in it, which probably seems silly. Finding the joy in my voice is like finding the joy in picking between your teeth. It’s this mundane necessity. I don’t sing because I love it, I sing because I need to. But if it’s everyday, and so often, it seemed a waste to spend so much time doing this basic thing without any sort of feeling for it. So I sought the joy and I found it. The joy in how powerful it feels. The joy in how it can sink ships and feed my entire flock from the wreck.
I find joy in the feel of my voice, the way it feels leaving my throat and the way it feels in the air around me. It’s wonderful and I feel so ridiculous that it feels so wonderful because why the heck should this boring mundane nothing feel so wonderful.
SIREN
Because it’s not nothing!
HARPY
Yes! Yes! It’s not and it might be silly that it’s not nothing but it’s not and… It’s not as if… I’m not saying that I’m good at it. I don’t know if I could ever say whether I’m good or bad at it.
SIREN
Well I can say it. You’re good at it.
HARPY
Thank you. What I mean is. I like my voice. I like using it. And even if there was a way to objectively prove: “my voice is terrible”, I’d still like it? At least, for me. Knowing me, I’d probably avoid using it around others because if “my voice is bad”, I’d think no one would want to hear it. But I’D still want to hear it.
SIREN
You don’t enjoy it because it’s good, you enjoy it because you’re using it and using it is a pleasurable experience.
HARPY
YES! Thank you. Exactly that.
SIREN
I had a similar experience when I was younger, well similar in that it was the exact opposite. I hated my voice.
HARPY
Why? It’s so beautiful.
SIREN
I really couldn’t tell you why, except maybe for the same reason I like it now, I suppose? I hated the experience of using my voice when I was younger, so I hated my voice. I enjoy using my voice now, so I like my voice now.
HARPY
The experience shaped your opinion of the tool.
SIREN
Exactly. Thank you. And also, thank you for indulging me in this conversation.
HARPY
Indulge is nowhere near accurate. You are a delightful conversationalist and I enjoy talking to you.
SIREN
Well, I might more readily believe that compliment if I wasn’t acutely aware of how this conversation began.
HARPY
What was that you said earlier? “This compliment is not given lightly”?
SIREN
Well… thank you.
HARPY
You’re welcome.
[Bittersweet begins and continues until the credits are over.]
SHADE
That was
DALLAS
Dallas Wheatley as the Harpy
SHADE
and Shade Oyemakinwa as the Siren.
Sound design by Chroma
Come On In, The Water’s Fine
Season 2: Mermaids and Other Monsters
Listen on Spotify, RadioPublic, Podchaser, and many other wonderful podcatchers.
Now, before you head off, I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell you about a future show that I’ve been looking forward to for quite some time. Premiering May 2020, Whispering is a retelling of Kore’s descent into the underworld, written by the magnificent Dallas Wheatley. Find it on the fireside folktales feed.
Thanks for listening. We’ll see you soon.
[Music fades out.]
SHADE
Welcome to the mid roll! I have wonderful news! That podcast rec for Whispering you just heard? That was made in May. The wait is over. All of Whispering is up on the fireside folktales feed right now as you’re listening to this! It’s funny actually because the two #ComeOnInPod episodes featured for PodTales are the two episodes with the Whispering recommendation and as you just heard, I’m keeping those in. Life is a lot and we’re all just trying to get through. Plus, Whispering’s really great. 5th episode made me cry for very specific to me reasons and I love it. Whispering, so nice, I rec’d it thrice.
Anyway, I can’t go on without telling you about Hauntingly Humdrum! It’s a 13 episode slice-of-life Halloween anthology that I really wanted to exist and over 20 people were willing to help me make it a reality! So many different artists coming together to create so many wildly different tales of the magically mundane! It was made for Halloween but only like, 2 episodes occur on Halloween, it’s a very good Autumn listen, full season’s up now! You got monsters and magical people just living their surprisingly boring, albeit compelling, lives.
As you have heard and will hear… this is a pattern with me. On to the next episode!
[Bittersweet by Kevin MacLeod begins. Title credit lines are heard over it after the first few seconds.]
SHADE
Come On In, The Water’s Fine
Season 2: Mermaids and Other Monsters
4 different episodes, 4 different conversations
Season 2, episode 3: “The Kraken Episode”
[Music fades out.]
KRAKEN
I’m hungry.
MERMAID
Me too.
KRAKEN
Let’s go eat something.
MERMAID
Where?
KRAKEN
Surface?
MERMAID
Ugh. I don’t wanna crash any ships right now.
KRAKEN
Well, I’d be the one crashing the ship.
MERMAID
Fine. I don’t want to LURE any ships right now.
KRAKEN
Why not? It’s pretty easy right?
MERMAID
Yeah, but I don’t wanna. You wanna just run through a school of fish with our mouths open?
KRAKEN
Nah, don’t feel like that either. And how would that work for you?
MERMAID
I’d get one. Wanna wrestle a whale?
KRAKEN
NO! AND WHY?!
MERMAID
Why not?
KRAKEN
I don’t eat whale. How would wrestling a whale get me fed?
MERMAID
I don’t know. Something to do? You wanna-
KRAKEN
No no no. Go back. I want to talk about this. I want to talk about the fact that you just completely abandoned any attempt to procure sustenance in less than 2 minutes. Let’s talk about the fact that you abandoned the totally obtainable goal of “ get something to eat” in favor of “let’s go pick a fight with a whale”.
MERMAID
Now hold on. I didn’t say we should pick a fight.
KRAKEN
You said “wrestle a whale”.
MERMAID
Yeah. And have you heard of a little something called asking first?
KRAKEN
Oh. My apologies. I didn’t realize you intended that we should convince a whale to spar with us. Hey. Hey buddy. That’s still a terrible idea. Sparring with whales is a bad idea in the best of circumstances. You are a tiny weak tiny mermaid being. You are barely bigger than what they usually eat. Now me? I admittedly, technically, have a shot.
MERMAID
Wow there was not a lick of confidence in that statement.
KRAKEN
Why would there be? I’m barely bigger than a whale. And what am I gonna do? Wrap them up in a death grip with my tentacles and bite them with my beak until they submit?
MERMAID
Now the sarcasm in your tone tells me you think that that’s ridiculous, but I gotta say that sounds like a pretty good strategy.
KRAKEN
This is why the thought of your sparing with a whale is not only terrifying, it’s laughable. Whales are culturally and genetically noble creatures. They would never allow biting in a sparing match. Plus their mouths are way bigger than mine.
MERMAID
I’d like to go back and officially log my displeasure in your complete dismissal of me as a potential whale fighter. I think I could hold my own against a whale.
KRAKEN
No you could not.
MERMAID
I’m not saying I’d have a chance of winning but I think I could put up a good fight.
KRAKEN
No. You could not. How are you not getting this. You are not even on the same level of existence as a whale! Whatcha gonna do? Scratch it with your claws? Bite it with your sharp teeth? You are a parasite to them! Actually, not even a parasite because a parasite could bring them effective and lasting harm. At best, you are an itch! You are an itch that they will scratch by rubbing you up against the sand and thus turning you into more sand!
We are nothing to them. You, an infinitesimally small piece of floating debris. Me? What does my size make me? An oddity? A kinetic sculpture for them to gaze upon?
MERMAID
When’s the last time you even talked to a whale? I talk to whales all the time. And you know what? They are people. They are people just like you and me. Are they huge and powerful? Yes. Are they the closest thing to deities on this planet? That we know, yeah. But they’re still people and people make mistakes that I will take advantage of to crush them in unarmed combat.
KRAKEN
Your hubris disgusts me. In one breath, you readily admit that they are god-like and in the next, you still claim that you have a chance? How dare you. They are the earth’s favored children and yet you swim there and tell me with a straight face that you, YOU can cut down god’s calvary.
MERMAID
Going back to the food conundrum, even if we lost, I think the whales would respect us and then bring us food so we could eat together as comrades. So win or lose, we’d still win.
KRAKEN
Why is this the way you want to get food?
MERMAID
EYE wanted to move on, you’re the one who wouldn’t let the whale fighting go.
KRAKEN
Be that as it may-
MERMAID
Brainstorming means there are no bad ideas! Maybe whale fighting could have led to another good idea, like following a school of whales until we come across sharks or ships or somebody trying to mess with them and then WE mess with the sharks or ships or somebody before they get to the whales so not only do we get to eat the sharks or ships or somebody, but then the whales love us and will let us swim with them and they’ll probably feed us for awhile after that. Oh dang!
KRAKEN
Yeeeeeeeeessssssss
MERMAID
NO. BAD. IDEAS.
KRAKEN
Let’s go find some whales!
[We hear water splashing as they start to swim away.]
MERMAID
Brainstorming is a powerful tool but you gotta follow the sacred tenets of collobaoration.
[The next two lines fade out as the two swim away.]
KRAKEN
I know. I know.
MERMAID
You’d think you’d learn to trust my brain mechanisms by now.
[Theme music begins and continues until the credits are over.]
SHADE
That was
DANY
Danyelle Ellet as the mermaid
SHADE
and Shade Oyemakinwa as the kraken.
Sound design by Chroma
Come On In, The Water’s Fine
Season 2: Mermaids and Other Monsters
Listen on Spotify, RadioPublic, Podchaser, and many other wonderful podcatchers.
Now, before you head off, I’d be remiss if I didn’t tell you about a future show that I’ve been looking forward to for quite some time. Premiering May 2020, Whispering is a retelling of Kore’s descent into the underworld, written by the magnificent Dallas Wheatley. Find it on the fireside folktales feed.
Thanks for listening. We’ll see you soon.
