A microfiction podcast about being lost at sea at the end of the world
About
February has always wanted to lose themselves in the ocean. Now they have, but it isn't exactly what they had in mind...Having ostensibly missed the end of the world somehow, February is the captain and sole crew member of a longline vessel called the Zenith, drifting around the Pacific Ocean in search for... something. But the stars are gone, the oceans make no sense, their compass has forgotten where north is, and no one is coming to help.Then they meet a marine biologist atop a sinking lighthouse, and everything they thought they knew about the world (which wasn't much to begin with) changes in an instant.A tale of oceans, haunting, exploration and queerness.
The Team
All At Sea is written and produced by the Making up Leeway team
Noah (they/them) is the writer of All At Sea and the voice of February. They're currently in the process of completing their MA in English Literature, which focuses on the importance of the found family trope in queer, POC-led narratives. When they're not drowning in books or literary analysis, you can find them staring blearily at a blank Word Doc, or drowning in all the different audio dramas they still need to listen to.
Scotchy (any pronouns) is a producer of All At Sea and the voice of Sturgeon. They found their passion for podcasting through working on The Hermit Archives as an editor and minor character, and can't wait to bring more sounds and noises right to your eardrums. When he isn't splicing voice lines for enrichment, or surviving the horrors of academia, Scotchy can be found making music, crocheting, or fishing around for a new hobby to try out.
Louis Wolf (he/they) is a producer of All At Sea, he is a disabled artist/actor based in Colorado. Doing theatre in high school helped to reveal his passion for storytelling, specifically with acting and directing. This has fed in well to a love of dnd. When not playing ttrpgs with friends, Louis can be found playing video games, yelling about superheroes, or watching bird documentaries with their cat. Louis is the assistant producer of Soul Operator, you can hear them as Alex in episode eight of The Grotto and Athena in the upcoming audio drama Forged Bonds. He is creator of upcoming talking head podcast Media Microscope.
Rowan Odom (they/them) Rowan is a non-binary creator whose passion lies in creating stories in a post-Covid world, specifically those filled with queerness, love, and horror. They also make time for D&D and random crafts in their spare time!
They are one of the Strangers of Twin Strangers Productions and the creator of the studio’s first AD, Syntax. They are also the main editor in the upcoming Rites of Descendancy and can be heard as a voice in The Moon Crown as Aria, and Syntax as Elora.
Rusty Cornmagnate (he/they) 20 y/o artist and graphic designer, author of visuals for All At Sea
El Carters (they/them) is our transcriber & beta-reader/listener.
Creative writing graduate from Poland who fell in love with the audio drama format in 2022. Since then they have been getting involved in some projects (like this one) & writing their own show - Nightpocalypse. When not writing, El likes to indulge in some sewing, soundscaping, DnD, media consumption, and various arts and crafts.
Contact:
Yell into a conch shell and your voice will be carried to us.
Nothing here yet! But if you look on the horizon... you might see something approaching...
Transcripts
All At SeaTrailer #1Written by Noah Bell
Sound Design by Rowan Odom
Music by Butterscotch Bread
Transcript by El Carters[FADE IN][Continued sounds of: sea waves crashing, ship creaking and echoing]
[Button clicks]
[Radio static]
[Continued electric buzzing]FEBRUARY:
Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, this is the Zenith. Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, this is the Zenith,this is the Zenith, I-
My-My position is-[panicked noise, sob]My- I don’t know where my position is, I don’t-
I don’t know! I don’t know where I am. T-The nav systems are out of whack, I can’t- I can't read them-
Shit![Click]
[Radio static]
[Button click]
[Continued electric buzzing again]FEBRUARY:[calmer] Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, this is the Zenith. This is the Zenith. Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, this is the Zenith. I am unsure of my position, navigation systems down. My vessel is… my- my vessel is somehow still afloat, but I-I don’t know how much longer that will be, I-I- I have…[panicked breath, a sob]I am the only one aboard.[pause]Please. Anyone? Can you hear me?[pause]Please! Anyone, can you hear me? Anyone?[FADE OUT/FADE IN]
[♪ MUSIC: Floodwater]ANNOUNCER:All At Sea is a microfiction podcast about being lost at sea at the end of the world.
This is a tale of hauntings, oceans, exploration and queerness.
Noah Bell is our writer and the voice of February.
Original music for the show was composed by ButterScotch Bread.
Rowan Odom is our sound designer.
Louis Wolf is our producer.
El Carters is our transcriber.
And show art was designed by Rusty.[pause]All At Sea. Coming to you Fall 2024.
Thank you for your support and we’ll see you… very soon.[Music ends/Sea waves crashing]
[FADE OUT]
[END]
Places to Listen
All At SeaEpisode #1
“CAPTAIN’S LOG: 1”Written by Noah Bell
Sound Design by Rowan Odom
Music by Butterscotch Bread
Transcript by El Carters[FADE IN]
[Sounds of waves]
[♪ MUSIC: All At Sea Theme]ANNOUNCER:
Making Up Leeway presents - All At Sea
Captain’s Log - First Entry[FADE OUT][Recorder clicks][Muted, continued sounds of: sea waves, ship creaking]FEBRUARY:
Captain’s log. Ah uh. Cap- Captain’s log- C-captain’s log? Captain’s log.
Um…
Yeah, okay, just like that. Yeah, ok.
Captain’s Log. Today’s date: the 21st of Who The Fuck Knows, in the year of our lilly-livered, obtuse overlord, number… one million and ninety-three![laugh turning into a long tired sigh]Uhhhh…
Keep to protocol, Feb. Keeping a record is important, Feb. This will be important later, Feb. Feb, why are you asleep in the crow’s nest, Feb? All of this will be incredibly important for when you get stuck in the open sea for no good reason when all your navigation systems are fried and even your compass is spinning around fast enough to give you vertigo, Feb!
Oh, and you’re also going to have to solo command a ship through a storm, Feb! Hyuh…[pause]Yea- well…
I could do with a warning next time.
Maybe…?[short pause]Not that anyone could have warned me…
I mean, I guess Ika-
Mh, well…
Would you look at that. Waffling.[quick breath in]Though I suppose I can allow myself the waffle-wiggle room, since this, um- memorandum, log, notation – whatever – it… well it is the first time I think I’ve spoken in… well, I- I don’t know how long? Which is kind of the point, because like I said, they never warned me about this kind of nonsense.
Nobody ever thinks to cover what to do when all your equipment takes a long walk off a short gangplank. Weh- Except my little trusty field recorder.[short pause]And I would laugh in Sam’s face if I could, which I can’t.
And laughing maniacally into my captain’s log seems pretty pathetic, so… I’ll make the executive decision not to… not do that.[short pause][inhale, sigh]Well! Let me do this nice and proper, why don’t I? Protocol, folk!
Captainnnnnnn’sssss….
Psh- Eh, yeah. Who am I kidding.
As for the date, I really, truly have no idea what it is. The cloud cover has blocked out not only the stars but has blotted out the sun as well. Which means if I don’t die of scurvy, the vitamin D deficiency will no doubt addle my mind.
My dad used to say that he could tell when I hadn’t seen the sun, because my depression would worsen. Which, you know… Thanks dad, fork found in kitchen![short laugh]Anyway – yeah. The cloud cover and the screwy stuff with the equipment has made it so I really don’t know how long I’ve been drifting. I don’t know how to describe this in a way that makes sense, really.[short pause]There is nothing for me to look at. Nothing that I can use to orient myself. Sky’s blocked out, we’ve covered that, but as far as landmasses go? Nothing. No-thing!
Clouds and water, that’s it.
No morning mist over the sea - though I suppose the no-sun thing has its part in that particular lack of phenomena.
My food stores seem fine? But I’ve been rationing pretty scrupulously because starvation is not something that I look forward to.
So I can’t rely on my eating habits.
Not that I was any good at keeping an eating schedule before this happened, but you know. In the here and now, it’s not helping me figure out any regulated day-night cycle.
The waters have been calm, for a change, which did prompt me to try the radio again.[shuffles forward, grabs radio][A button click][Radio static, distorted whine][A button clicks, the radio is shut off]FEBRUARY:
Ymm, yeah, no.
Since my recorder works fine, I don’t think it’s the moisture that got to the tech, which, if that were the case, what a colossal oversight from the people who installed these tin cans.
It did remind me of this one Tintin comic I read way back. I can’t remember the name - it happened in multiple books I’m sure – where the one ship uses a morse code… machine? They used it when Tintin, Snowy and… some professor guy escaped or fall overboard some ship that was transporting them in coffins.
Don’t quote me on that-
Anyway, the communications they used – I… think it’s called radiotelegraphy? Radio telegraphy? Radio- Radiotelegraphy, yeah. But don’t quote me on that either.
[short sigh]
It made me wonder-
If I still had that installed in this uncommunicative junk heap, would I have been able to call out for someone? Or- or would it, too, have broken down?[long pause]Maybe if I try the-[Button click][Radio static again that is quickly cut off]FEBRUARY:
[deep sigh][exhausted] End log.[Recorder click off][FADE IN]
[♪ MUSIC: All At Sea Theme repeated]ANNOUNCER:
This episode of All At Sea is written and performed by Noah Bell as the voice of February.
Original music for the show is composed by Butterscotch Bread.
Rowan Odom is our sound designer.
Louis Wolf is our producer.
El Carters is our transcriber.
And show art is designed by Rusty.
If you rate and review us on your favorite podcatcher you get one invisible seashell.
Please find us on Tumblr and Twitter at All At Sea Pod.
Thank you for listening.
YIPPIE 🙂[FADE OUT]
[END]
All At Sea
Episode #2
“CAPTAIN’S LOG: 2nd Entry”Written by Noah Bell
Sound Design by Rowan Odom
Music by Butterscotch Bread
Transcript by El Carters[FADE IN]
[Sounds of waves]
[♪ MUSIC: All At Sea Theme]ANNOUNCER:
Making Up Leeway presents - All At Sea
Captain’s Log - Second Entry[FADE OUT]
[Recorder clicks]
[Muted, continued sounds of: sea waves, ship creaking]FEBRUARY:Becalmed.
I've been thinking a lot about that word - becalmed. The state of being unable to move because of a lack of wind.
Well, I can't speak for anyone else but if I was stuck in an unmoving ship at sea I certainly wouldn't be calm.[awkward pause]It’s a real knee-slapper, that one.[pause][tired] Why am I like this?[Recorder clicks off]
[Recorder clicks on again]FEBRUARY:
[imitating a news anchor voice]
Captain's log. Today is the 111th of “Shit, I’m Still Alive?” In the approximate year 2049. In today’s report, the waters seem sufficiently watery. They haven’t watered any less water since the last time I checked if the waters watered correctly, which was approximately one minute ago when I stared over the side of the boat wondering how long it would take me to sink to the bottom of the ocean if I put exactly one can of beans in my raincoat.[stops imitating a news anchor]Of course I probably wouldn’t sink. Just do a lot of tragic bobbing around, buoyed nonconsensually by the salt water. Beans, believe it or not, aren’t that great at weighing you down a whole lot. Which, you know, isn’t great, if your goal is to sink to the bottom of the ocean, but of course it depends, like so many things do, on the facts.
Come to think of it-
[scoff]-I actually would probably be sinking down to the bottom of the ocean. I’m nowhere near tropical waters, so the cold water ought to sort of… fight against the bacteria that causes the gas which causes the bloating which brings you up to the surface, et cetera, et cetera…
So instead, ha-ha, of being buffeted by the waves, you get to hit the sand like the new hot commodity in town![short pause]But then again, what if it’s a really anticlimactic depth? You know, you sink down and instead of dropping down into a trench you just… Hit the sand.
The most embarrassing corpse to ever sink in the Pacific Ocean – which famously has many trenches – and you’ve already passed out, because… you know, you were bludgeoned over the head before walking the plank or whatever? It’s not like you were only weighed down by a can of Schrodinger’s expired beans. But it’s not even out of the range of sunlight so you’re just drifting around in the sand!
After a few weeks your skin starts becoming more of a suit than attached to your body in any super adhesive way, and sharks come and sniff at you and decide you’re wholly and totally unappealing, so they bugger off to find something more delicious to eat. The crabs come to crawl all over you, and the lice start snacking on you.
But you know what? Maybe they are also uninterested in your fleshy bits. Until some poor scuba diver shows up and becomes horrifically traumatized by your being there.[long pause]Gods!
Maybe it’s a good thing I’m not becalmed.
Nope, not becalmed.
Just directionless.
Yep.
Just… directionless.
That’s… all.[short pause]End log.[Recorded click off]
[FADE IN]
[♪ MUSIC: All At Sea Theme repeated]ANNOUNCER:
This episode of All At Sea is written and performed by Noah Bell as the voice of February.
Original music for the show is composed by Butterscotch Bread.
Rowan Odom is our sound designer.
Louis Wolf is our producer.
El Carters is our transcriber.
And show art is designed by Rusty.
Rate and review us on your favorite podcatcher for one can of Schrodinger’s expired beans.
Find us on Twitter and Tumblr at All At Sea Pod.
And thank you for listening. 🙂[FADE OUT]
[END]
All At SeaEpisode #3
“CAPTAIN’S LOG: 3rd Entry”Written by Noah Bell
Sound Design by Rowan Odom
Music by Butterscotch Bread
Transcript by El Carters[FADE IN]
[Sounds of waves]
[♪ MUSIC: All At Sea Theme]ANNOUNCER:
Making Up Leeway presents - All At Sea
Captain’s Log - Third Entry[FADE OUT]
[Recorder clicks]
[water sloshing around]
[Continued calm wind at sea]FEBRUARY:
Captain’s log. It’s the 29th of March in the year of nothing at all, number two-hundred and ninety seven.
[water sloshing around]
I would like to state for the record that I know I technically can’t be becalmed. This is not a sailboat. I have a whole entire, state of the art, 21st century engine.[water sloshing around]Actually, I tell a lie. I can be becalmed, and also anyone who calls this motor constructed from aluminum foil and duct tape ‘state of the art’-[water sloshing around]-needs to get their eyes checked.
I know that technically and per definition I can’t be becalmed, because of the previously mentioned not-being-a-sailboat detail, but I still run the very real risk of not having any more fuel. No fuel means no movement and this thing–[thunk of a boot kicking the ship]– has no oars to speak of. Or sails for that matter. Even if it had oars, I’d have to have some pretty insane wingspan to be able to row this thing. Not to mention super strength, which, last I checked, I woefully lack. And I have no sails. Did I mention?[water sloshing around]Well, yes. I have no sails. Which doesn’t take away from my becalm-ability, as I mentioned before.[pause]Anyway…
I… do have enough fuel, I’m in no danger of running out any time soon, at least…
Hold on.[footsteps on deck]
[door opens]
[footsteps]
[door closes]
[continued sounds of calm wind on the ocean dampen]
[footsteps on metal stairs]
[fading in, continued: hum of machinery and running pipes]
[footsteps on wooden stairs]
[step on a metal grate]
[opening a fuel tank cover]
[sound echoes]FEBRUARY:
Yep, more than enough in the tank-
(under their breath) -for some reason…
And I have a spare tank in the hold. After just… swimming around in this nonsensical soup of nonsensical time, of just boating around, hoping to find land – I decided to nix the engine - um,for now.
Or, well, I’ve nixed the engine for about… hmm… um,ten or so ‘nights’?
I’ve said this before, but I suppose it bears repeating just for integrity’s sake - there is nothing around me.
No landmasses, no wayward conveniently positioned lighthouses like in a proper story, nothing.
So I’ve decided to just drift. For a while.
Of course,there was the storm before the aimless boating, so, I could do with a little drifting.
Maybe.
Maybe I’ll chance upon another vessel out here,my knights in shining steel hull shorts.
Nevermind the fact that I haven’t seen any of those, either. Or the fact that despite sending off almost all of our flares at different points during this journey, I haven’t seen anything.
(scoff)
No return signal, no lights in the dark.
I don’t even know if those flares were even seen, you know?
The sky just seemed to… swallow them up after I shot them. Even I lost sight of them once they left my immediate field of vision.[pause]
[Static crackles in the background]FEBRUARY:
[sniffle]
End log.[Recorder click off]
[FADE IN]
[♪ MUSIC: All At Sea Theme repeated]ANNOUNCER:
This episode of All At Sea is written and performed by Noah Bell as the voice of February.
Original music for the show is composed by Butterscotch Bread.
Rowan Odom is our sound designer.
Louis Wolf is our producer.
El Carters is our transcriber.
And show art is designed by Rusty.
Rate and review us on your favorite podcatcher for an inexplicably infinite fuel source.
Please find us on Twitter and Tumblr at All At Sea Pod.
Thank you for listening.[FADE OUT]
[END]
All At SeaEpisode #4
“CAPTAIN’S LOG: 4”Written by Noah Bell
Sound Design by Rowan Odom
Music by Butterscotch Bread
Transcript by El Carters[FADE IN]
[Sounds of waves]
[♪ MUSIC: All At Sea Theme]ANNOUNCER:
Making Up Leeway presents - All At Sea
Captain’s Log - Fourth Entry
[FADE OUT]
[Recorder clicks]
[Continued: sounds of waves hitting the ship and overall out at sea ambience]FEBRUARY:
Captain’s log. Today is the one millionth and second iteration of the month of “Hm? What’s That Again?” In the year of our sogginess, ten. Yeah, that’s it. Ten. Ten before or after what, you may be asking, and to that I say: stop talking to me, you’re a mirage, get back to the desert.
Though, I’m pretty sure that you can get mirage-adjacent phenomena on the sea?
Probably. I wouldn’t know, though, I stopped looking out at the horizon a-long time ago.[sigh-laugh]
[short pause]When I was a kid, I used to say things like “I’m going to throw myself into the sea” whenever I felt particularly exasperated? It seemed like a good idea at the time. To forgo all of the world’s weary reality to toss myself into the waves. Salt spray in my face. And in my eyes and nose, which would be less pleasant, but still.[chuckle]I don’t know, I think I thought the cold shock of the sea could fix me. Well now I’ve got nothing-
[voice rising, a bit away from the recorder] BUT sea, and NOTHING has become ANY better![pause]
[long sighs]
I’m sorry.[Recorder clicks off]
[Recorder clicks back on]FEBRUARY:
Captain’s log-
[short sigh]
-continued.
It’s not all bad. Really. I mean- I mean, it could be so much worse?
I’ve never been someone to complain about being by myself. Introverted, I guess you could say? Whenever I said that to anyone, they’d look at me funny, like they think I’d be lying? Why would someone lie about being introverted? Do they think it makes them seem cool, or edgy, or something? Some-
(mocking tone) “I don’t need anybody, I’m such a brave and strong and mysterious lone wolf” (back to normal tone) shtick?
Gotta be, right? Everybody thinks the way to appear interesting is by being dark and unapproachable.
Well, you know, maybe - if you’re the love interest in some faerie smut novel.
But not in real life. In real life, people are drawn to those who just… glow.[chuckle]Not all the time, mind you, but most of the time. There are some people in this world that, when you talk to them, it feels like their names are written in the stars and everyone can see it.
You’d be hard pressed to find a single person say a single bad word about them, and for good reason.
It must be like… a kindness, I think.[pause]At least, it’s that to me. Of course you find your aloof individualist types, and they have their own allure – kind of like in The Secret History, but with less murder and incest.
People gravitate to them too, that un-attainability, exclusivity. But the allure only lasts for so long as that un-attainability does. As soon as you understand them, their hypnotizing pull just falls apart.[pause]And I’ve never been interested in those kinds of people. Like I said, for me it’s always just been those people who just… oh, gods, how to explain it? I mean, suppose I already have in some ways, but-
I don’t know.
I just can’t seem to get the words right!
But they just glow.
Radiating warmth, and kindness, and they inspire hope in a way that could just drive you to tears thinking about it.[short pause]Avalon was like that.
Someone who just… glowed.[long pause]Anyway. I’ve gotten so distracted.
Like I said, I’m introverted. But I think people don’t believe me because I’m not shy?
I find it easy enough to talk to people, if I have to, I can put on a face, and be sociable, but it drains me, and so, I need to be alone sometimes.
But I am also someone who needs to… see people.
If I don’t, I get all in my head about everything, which makes me anxious, which makes the world around me go all fuzzy and strange, and then before I know it, I’m… just… drifting?
This drifting, it’s not the same as that childish ‘flinging myself into the sea of my own volition’. There’s no shock of cold water, no sting of salt-spray. Instead of being washed off your feet by a wave crashing over the prow of a ship, it’s like I’m on… a raft. Taken by the wind and the waves.
Except, I can’t feel the waves.
I- I know they’re there, I can sense their movement. But I- but I can’t feel them.
To reach out, to try and touch the waters… is to-
Is to plummet.
You know, like when you fall from a height in a dream, the dreamscape-impact shakes you awake?
Until I am taken by the waves again.
Now… all I see is the ocean. The waves. I feel them now, buffeting me around. But sometimes, I don’t know what’s real anymore. Is this my mind? Or is this my reality?[A long pause as we hear the water lapping at the ship more]FEBRUARY:
[slight echo]
Avalon… they– well…
[short chuckle]
They knew how to reach through the mists.
I think some part of me is waiting for him to do it, even now. Like, if I wish it into existence, they’ll rise up from the sea, step onto this boat, and offer me their hand.
[slight echo fading away]
But this isn’t my mind. And these are not my dreams.
End log.[Recorder clicks off]
[FADE IN]
[♪ MUSIC: All At Sea Theme repeated]ANNOUNCER:
This episode of All At Sea is written and performed by Noah Bell as the voice of February.
Original music for the show is composed by Butterscotch Bread.
Rowan Odom is our sound designer.
Louis Wolf is our producer.
El Carters is our transcriber.
And show art is designed by Rusty.
Rate and review us on your favorite podcatcher for one spritz of sea mist.😊
Please find us on Twitter and Tumblr at All At Sea Pod.
Thank you for listening.[FADE OUT]
[END]
All At SeaEpisode #5
“CAPTAIN’S LOG: 5”Written by Noah Bell
Sound Design by Rowan Odom
Music by Butterscotch Bread
Transcript by El Carters[FADE IN]
[Sounds of waves]
[♪ MUSIC: All At Sea Theme]ANNOUNCER:
Making Up Leeway presents - All At Sea
Captain’s Log - Fifth Entry[FADE OUT]
[Recorder clicks]
[Continued: sounds of waves calmly hitting the ship, general at sea ambience]
[Recorder placed on the wooden deck]
[Ruffling of paper, pages being turned]FEBRUARY:Drowning is not so pitiful
as the attempt to rise.
Three times,‘tis said, a sinking man
comes up to face the skies,
and then declines forever
to that abhorred abode
where hope and he part company
for he is grasped of God.
The Maker’s cordial visage,
However good to see,
is shunned, we must admit it,
like an adversity.[The waves lap against the ship]
[Book snapped shut]
[Scuffling noises - recorder being picked up]
[Recorder clicks off]
[FADE IN]
[♪ MUSIC: All At Sea Theme repeated]ANNOUNCER:This episode of All At Sea is written and performed by Noah Bell as the voice of February.
Original music for the show is composed by Butterscotch Bread.
Rowan Odom is our sound designer.
Louis Wolf is our producer.
El Carters is our transcriber.
And show art is designed by Rusty.
Rate and review us on your favorite podcatcher for one scrap of paper with an Emili Dickinson poem on it. 😊
Find us on Twitter and Tumblr at All At Sea Pod.
Thank you for listening.[FADE OUT]
[END]
All At SeaEpisode #6
“CAPTAIN’S LOG: 6”Written by Noah Bell
Sound Design by Rowan Odom
Music by Butterscotch Bread
Transcript by El Carters[FADE IN]
[Sounds of waves]
[♪ MUSIC: All At Sea Theme]ANNOUNCER:
Making Up Leeway presents - All At Sea
Captain’s Log - Sixth Entry[FADE OUT]
[Recorder clicks]
[Continued: sounds of waves calmly hitting the ship, general at sea ambience]
[Recorder placed on the wooden deck]
[Some stumbling steps]FEBRUARY:
Who fears death? Certainly not I, your brave and valiant captain Februarious Pippenpaddleopsicopolis The Highly Fortuitous Twenty-Fourth!
Why am I the fortuitous you may ask?
Well you see, my dear fishbone lying on the deck, it is because every single one of the twenty-three who came before suffered the most gruesome, horrific, downright unspeakable death that you can imagine.
Which makes them quite unfortuitous indeed.
I have lived through many a trial, overcome many a tribulation and there are none who face the waters of the Pacific quite like I. None have withstood their pull and conquered their unknowable majesty!
I live on, even in the debris of many ended lives. Why are you only hearing of me and my miraculous escape from unfortuitous death right now?
Stop asking questions. Take a hike.[Fabric rustling followed by the fishbone being picked up and dropped into the water]FEBRUARY:
Good riddance. She was going to start a mutiny. I could sense it with my third eye.[short pause]Though… I don’t know why she’d want to mutin-me.[awkward pause]
[hands clap]FEBRUARY:
Good one, Feb. Good one.[Recorder clicks off]
[Recorder clicks back on]FEBRUARY:
Captain’s log! Today is the 5th of the 16th of the 19th of the 12th month in the 16th of the 17th year of our lord. Happy new years!
“February!”, I don’t hear you asking, “how would you know if it was New Years?” And to that I say, I don’t know, and isn’t that so wonderful! The human condition!
New Years. What a concept![pause]I did do the math. Shock horror, I know. Math? Me? Who would have thought. Certainly not I.
Of course, like I said, I have no idea how much time has passed since we set sail.
Date of launch was the 2nd of June, 2038. Really, the day was unremarkable, for the most part. We loaded the Zenith, double checked all our lines, stocked the freezer and pantry, stacked the nets, kicked the hull, swept the deck and the hold.
I remember Lily at the docks saying something about the news, they’d reported storms… somewhere.[scoff]I only listened with half an ear anyway. That’s all they’d been reporting on for the past year. Storms. Water levels rising. Same old same old. Practically quotidian, as my professor at uni used to say.
That it started out as a phenomena that made every Tom, Dick and Harry get their boxers in a twist, had become absolutely quotidian.
The point is – Laufey said that we would go out, so we did. We were out here for just shy of a fortnight before everything went to hell.[short pause]SO–![as February talks: sound of them getting up and walking the deck]FEBRUARY:I checked the engines.[pause]Well… First I checked the solar-generators, like I haven’t been obsessively doing that for the time I’ve been here, but this time it was for science.[Footsteps stop]FEBRUARY:
The Zenith is supposed to be able to be out on the waters for four weeks without refueling. And that’s when we’re out during the winter, so our A season, from January to March.
But, like I said before, we set out at the start of June, which meant we– I was supposed to be able to rely on only solar power for the duration of the season. So… technically no need for refueling, not accounting for stops to offload the catch. But fuel is always there as a backup, for the worst case scenario. Which is rain, obviously.
But like I said before, we– I was two weeks out before time suddenly got all je ne sais quoi on my ass - on account of the skies being covered, like I said, and the torrential rain – did I mention the torrential rain that I had while trying to navigate this dead horse of a craft!
So I had no idea how far or long I'd traveled.[pause]Anyway, I checked the solar generators and they’re fine. At least, structurally they are. The battery is fully drained.
Then I checked the fuel generators, did the math, aaand according to what I’ve calculated, I’ve a good two and a half weeks of fuel left, which makes absolutely no sense. And I mean, none.
I might not be keeping by any naturally ordained day-night cycle, but I sure as hell have slept more ‘nights’ than just half a week.
[scoff-laughing] Gods! Slap two of every animal on my deck, paint rainbows on my nipples and call me Noah, because forty days and forty nights sounds like exactly how long I’ve been here![Quiet crackle of static]FEBRUARY:
(increasingly agitated) It doesn’t make sense! None of this makes sense! It has never made sense! Egh- End log.[Recorder clicks off]
[FADE IN]
[♪ MUSIC: All At Sea Theme repeated]ANNOUNCER:
This episode of All At Sea is written and performed by Noah Bell as the voice of February.
Original music for the show is composed by Butterscotch Bread.
Rowan Odom is our sound designer.
Louis Wolf is our producer.
El Carters is our transcriber.
And show art is designed by Rusty.
One rate and review equals one mutinous fishbone thrown overboard!🏴☠️
Find us on Twitter and Tumblr at All At Sea Pod.
Thank you for listening. 😊[FADE OUT]
[END]
All At SeaEpisode #7
“CAPTAIN’S LOG: 7”Written by Noah Bell
Sound Design by Rowan Odom
Music by Butterscotch Bread
Transcript by El Carters[FADE IN]
[Sounds of waves]
[♪ MUSIC: All At Sea Theme - it goes wrong: slowing down, breaking up into static]
[Doors open]
[Digital recording sound on]
[Continued, muted: wind whistling, the rustle of trees]
[Continued: static rushing in and out]LOLA:
So… if you hear this, I went walking.
That probably doesn’t sound that bad, right? Lola went for a walk. She’ll be back soon.
I don’t know how to explain that…
[reverbing] I know I won’t be coming back.
It’s like this persistent voice at the back of your head, like when someone moves all the furniture in your house an inch to the left, you just–
[reverbing, distorted] something is wrong, but you don’t know what.
You don’t fit into this space, your home, the way you’re supposed to.
It’s like, this world is falling apart and I’m supposed to find where I fit in the jigsaw, except it’s been shaken up in the box and I’m missing a corner piece.I have this urge to just… walk.
To just open the door and see where my feet take me. I know they’d find their way. I can feel the itch in my limbs, this restless feeling whenever I try to sleep, like my bones are singing, like if I don’t move, they’ll vibrate right through my flesh and keep on dancing.[short pause]LOLA:
And there are these voices…
[echoey] “Come away, o human child, to the waters and the wild, with a faery, hand in hand, for the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.”
Okay. Okay.[short pause]
[Quiet footsteps]
[Front doors open - hailing wind, rustling of leaves intensifies]
[Footsteps - Lola walks out]
[Front doors close]
[Digital recording sound off]TRAILER SWAP ANNOUNCER:
The Attic Monologues is an urban fantasy horror podcast focused on fates, friends to lovers and feathered friends. Follow us into the forest with season 2B,beginning July 31st.[Distorted audio static]
[Shed doors being closed and locked]
[FADE IN][♪ MUSIC: All At Sea Theme transitioning from wrong & distorted to regular]
[Sounds of waves]ANNOUNCER:
Making Up Leeway presents - All At Sea
Captain’s Log - Seventh Entry[FADE OUT]
[Recorder clicks]
[Continued: muted at sea ambience in the background, sea waves hitting the ship]
[Fabric rustling]FEBRUARY:
Captain’s log. The somethingth somethingth, of the month of whatchamcallit, in the year of… who cares. Really.[Pause]
[Fabric rustling]FEBRUARY:
I’ve been thinking about voicemails.[breath]Not that I was ever anyone who got left many voicemails, mind you.
I’m still kind of convinced that people listening to vitally important, emotionally gripping or plot-relevant voicemails is something that only ever happens in movies? I’ve never received a voicemail. Hell, I never really received all that many phone calls in the first place?
If I was doing something online with friends, the call was scheduled, and so it was something we were both aware of – so no need for a voicemail there.
The only other times I’d get calls from friends was because I hadn’t answered the “where are you?” text on a trip, or a night out.
Still, those moments were few and far between. Certainly no voicemails.The only other calls I could never prepare for were those made by my dads, or my grandma, but neither of my dads ever left any voicemails? If I didn’t pick up, one of them would text me, or the other would send an email. And really, they called pretty often, made sure to know when my seasons started and ended, asked after me in the months I wasn’t at sea, so if I didn’t answer the phone it wasn’t the end of the world and nothing worth leaving a voicemail over.[Fabric rustling]FEBRUARY:
Gran… well, she only ever called to hear:
[imitating an old woman] “When do you plan on coming back to South Africa, young sir? Your father never wants to drink Earl Gray with me.”
[close to laughing] If I didn't pick up the phone, I’d get an earful whenever I did answer.
To be fair to her though, that was her favorite past-time – giving me an earful. About anything, really. Such things she could never leave to the perceived impersonality of a voicemail. She wanted to hear my voice. And she wanted to see me.
Video calls only.
[pause]
So, yeah.
And of course, me being me, the fact that I wasn’t often the recipient of phone calls from loved ones meant that I couldn’t possibly call them first, that would violate the terms of my brain’s little ‘Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Be Too Much’ protocol that probably drove more people away than kept them close to me, in the end?
But I think the point still stands.
I don’t know of many people who still receive voicemails.
It lives in my mind as a phenomenon relegated back to old 2010 TV serials? Like my dads used to watch in their early 30s? Which they tried to get me to love. And I did, but… only whenever I was watching it with them.
In those shows, it always seemed like people were getting left important messages on voicemail, or, even, depending on how old the show was, there would be critical messages left on the answering machine.[thump]We had a landline in our home.
I know, a landline?
In this day and age?
But my dad didn’t like cellphones. He said it “kept him anxious”, and that he didn’t want to be “so easy to reach”. Any questions about what we would do if something happened to him, or we needed him…[short pause]He’d just answer by saying: “people have lived a longer time without cellphones than with them. They made it out just fine”.
So a lot of my memories of dad are handwritten notes taped to my door, stuck to the fridge, left scrawled on a notepad – you guessed it – by the landline.
It worked well enough.
He was the least anxious person I ever knew. But I don’t know if the whole phone thing is entirely to commend for that.Anyway. Not… really the point I guess.
He didn’t get left any voicemails either, but it wasn’t a perfect system.
He went on a hiking trip, my dad. Up in the Drakensberg?
It wasn’t his first time, he had done it before with Gran when she was younger, he even dragged me up to smell that fresh mountain air – but he was going it alone this time. No phone, no satellite phone either. Just him and his backpack.[short pause]And then he didn’t call home when he was supposed to. And we didn’t know how to get in contact with him.
My father was frantic – called the lodge to ask about where his husband was, did they have a man called Ben, Bently March? And they said yes, a Bently March was booked with them, they were aware of him. And I have never seen my father lose his calm as much as he did that day over the phone. Demanding they send a search party to check for Ben, he gave them the trail he had said he would be walking and everything.[short pause]
[Fabric rustle]FEBRUARY:
Father and I took the first flight out of Cape Town. By the time we got there, they had found him and relocated him to a hospital. He had taken a misstep, snapped his femur right in half. Luckily he had the good sense to not try and move too far from the trail, experienced climber and all. But he’d had to find a rock overhang to find shelter from the rains.
There weren’t many hikers that time of year, which is why he had gone undiscovered for so long. And other than the femur, he was fine.
[laughing] And it didn’t make him acquire a phone either, despite my father’s insistence.
[imitating Ben March] “Timothy March, I knew you’d find me, didn’t I?”
That’s what he said. Father was real angry at him for that one, but… it was true enough. We didn’t even have to receive a cryptic, plot-relevant voicemail for us to know something was wrong, and that we’d have to run to the rescue.
But then again… if the worst had happened, we wouldn’t have had any voicemails to listen to, over and over again, until our friends started to worry and tell us
[feigned American accent, imitating a friend] “You gotta move on”.
It would have been little comfort anyway, thinking about it now.
And there would have been better things to remember him by than a voicemail.
I certainly never left any voicemails.
But if I did, I wonder if anyone would listen to them?
If anyone is out there looking for me or…[uneven breath]Or if they’ve all just assumed I’m dead.
End log.[Recorder clicks off]
[FADE IN]
[♪ MUSIC: All At Sea Theme repeated]ANNOUNCER:
This episode of All At Sea is written and performed by Noah Bell as the voice of February.
Original music for the show is composed by Butterscotch Bread.
Rowan Odom is our sound designer.
Louis Wolf is our producer.
El Carters is our transcriber.
And show art is designed by Rusty.
Rate and review us on your favorite podcatcher for a nice, warm cup of Gran’s earl gray tea.
Please, find us on Twitter and Tumblr at All At Sea Pod.
Thank you for listening. 😊
[FADE OUT]
[END]
All At SeaEpisode #8
“Captain’s Log: 8”Written by Noah Bell
Sound Design by Rowan Odom
Music by Butterscotch Bread
Transcript by El Carters[sounds of waves]
[♪ MUSIC: All At Sea Theme]ANNOUNCER:
Making Up Leeway presents - All At Sea
Captain’s Log: 8th Entry[FADE OUT]
[Recorder clicks on]
[Continued: Sounds of water and the sea]
[Footsteps on deck, fabric rustling]FEBRUARY:
Captain’s log. Today is the 15th of March, 44 BCE.
Yeah, that’s right. Julius Caesar is alive, and he’s about to bite it. Spectacularly.
He shouldn’t have anything to worry about though, the same soothsayer who warned him about the stabbing also prophesied that this totally wouldn’t be an event remembered in history at all.
I don’t think the soothsayer accounted for Tumblr though, but - who can blame them.You might think I bring up this date as relevant to my life in some way. The return of that mutinous fishbone, perhaps?
Well, you would be wrong, I snapped that fishbone and she will not be returning.
(ominously) Ever.
Well. I suppose I didn’t really snap it, I just… kinda threw her in the general that-way direction.Well, what was taken from the sea has been justly returned to the sea, and I am safe.
As safe as I can be.
Though I did survive those storms, so really, my track record is phenomenal!
Immortal until proven mortal, I suppose.
Or perhaps I’m just… so lucky.[Footsteps cease]
[Fabric squeak as it brushes against a metal railing]FEBRUARY:
You know who wasn’t lucky though?
Julius Caesar, yeah.
Imagine getting stabbed by your best friend, and he didn’t even have the gall to make it homoerotic. With the dagger under the chin and the tilt of the head.
Nah, he brought 60 other guys to come and help him.
Now, I hear you, I hear you - what could be more homoerotic than being stabbed by 60 men?
And to that I say – c’mon, stabbed by 60 men? That isn’t homoerotic, it’s just a mob – and secondly, he was only stabbed 23 times. Brutus might have stabbed him 10 of those times, you never know.
“Et tu Brutus” is pretty gay though, I’ll give him that.
Though we can’t really give that one to Caesar either? Gotta give it to ol’ Willy Shakes, which tracks, considering he wrote Hamlet. And Hamlet was plenty gay.[Fabric rustling]FEBRUARY:
Imagine. Imagine though. Being betrayed in that way? Nahh, couldn’t be me.
I’d never become the charismatic and capable dictator ruler of ancient Rome and then get stabbed by people who want me out of power. Umm, no, no.
I’d never give them the chance to even get to know me. You see, I have perfected the art of never having any real connections to anyone.
The trick is, of course, that you gotta really yearn for connection. Now - stay with me, that seems counterintuitive but I promise we’ll make it make sense. You gotta really yearn for connection. And I do mean yearn. You just… don’t want to be so lonely anymore. Then, you find friends. Feel loved. But then, critically, start doubting whether they love you or not, because they didn’t tell you something or they never talk about their feelings, or confide their vulnerabilities and you do that all the time. Or they don’t reach out to you first, and somehow you’re always the one asking to see them.
And then, you just have to feel SO lonely. Lonely enough that you think “oh, I couldn’t reach out to them. I need to keep all of my feelings right here, in my chest–[Hand hits jacket fabric]–and never divulge them”. This will create a rift that exists only in your mind. And, once you have this rift, you can just stop reaching out to the people you love, and when they don’t notice and don’t reach out back, you can feel fully vindicated that you were never loved in the first place.
[Fabric rustle as Feb puts their hand down]
If you follow these easy steps, you might be desperately sad, and yearn for connection, but at least you won’t get murdered by the Roman senate, because nobody knew you well enough to care that you were there in the first place.[Pause]FEBRUARY:
Key is, of course, to never let it slip – your yearning. Or your desperation for connection. Or people will know you. Know your pain. And then you’ll look pathetic, like you’re seeking attention, which, obviously not, not in THAT way. Not in a way that begs for recognition or for EVERYONE in the world to look at you.
No, no. Just one person. That would be… that would be enough.
Because of course, otherwise, you also run the risk of getting murdered by the Roman senate! And how embarrassing would it be to get murdered by the Roman senate, clutching at the robes of your friend, asking them if, really, really, were you a part of this too?!
That just sounds like an anxious attachment style to me.[Long pause]
[Fabric rustling]FEBRUARY:
Of course, if you live long enough, you always have the opportunity to get lost at sea, and then there will be nobody there to feel sorry for you, and you won’t have to worry about anybody who will judge you for being so insecure! And then you don’t have to face those aspects of yourself at all.
You can excise your emotional core, feed it to the sea, watch it sink beneath the waves where nothing lurks. No creatures, no plants, and certainly no light.
[pause]
“Good riddance,” you’ll say to yourself. Because really, there is nothing else and nobody else. And there never will be.
[somber pause]
I mean, there are some knives here, but I’m pretty sure I’m far away from the Roman senate.
[short pause]
End log.[FADE IN]
[♪ MUSIC: All At Sea Theme repeated]ANNOUNCER:
This episode of All At Sea is written and performed by Noah Bell as the voice of February.
Original music for the show is composed by Butterscotch Bread.
Rowan Odom is our sound designer.
Louis Wolf is our producer.
El Carters is our transcriber.
And show art is designed by Rusty.
Rate and review us on your podcatcher for one conveniently placed lighthouse.
Find us on Twitter and Tumblr at All At Sea Pod.
Thank you for listening.[FADE OUT]
[END]
All At SeaEpisode #7.5
“PHONE LOG: Missed Call - Avalon”Written by Noah Bell
Sound Design by Rowan Odom
Music by Butterscotch Bread
Transcript by El Carters[FADE IN]
[Sounds of waves]ANNOUNCER:
Making Up Leeway presents - All At Sea
Phone Log: Missed Call - Avalon[FADE OUT]
[FADE IN]
[Continued: Raining sounds]
[phone calling sound]
[Beep]FEBRUARY:
[recorded voicemail message] Hey, this is Feb. If you’re hearing this I’m probab–[call end beep]
[smartphone taps]
[dialing]
[phone calling]
[beep]FEBRUARY:
[recorded voicemail message] Hey, this is Feb. If you’re hearing this I’m probably out at sea. Shoot me a text or leave me a message and I’ll get back to you.[message beep]AVALON:
No. Nonono– Feb, pick up–[low beep]ELECTRONIC VOICE:
Message deleted.[smartphone tap]
[dialling]
[phone calling]
[beep]FEBRUARY:
[recorded voicemail message] Hey, this is Feb. If you’re hearing this, I’m probably out at sea. Shoot me a text, or leave me a message, and I’ll get back to you.[message beep]AVALON:
[irritated/worried] February.[low beep]ELECTRONIC VOICE:
Message dele–[smartphone taps]
[dialing]
[phone calling]
[beep]FEBRUARY:
[recorded voicemail message] Hey, this is Feb. If you’re hearing this, I’m probably out at sea. Shoot me a text, or leave me a message, and I’ll get back to you.[message beep]AVALON:
[worried] February, I don’t know where you are. Now? Really? Now? Of all the times to– If you’re ignoring me… if you’re in one of your–[low beep]ELECTRONIC VOICE:
Message deleted.[smartphone taps]
[dialling]
[phone calling]
[beep]FEBRUARY:
[recorded voicemail message] Hey, this is Feb. If you’re hearing this, I’m probably out at sea. Shoot me a text, or leave me a message, and I’ll get back to you.[message beep]AVALON:
Feb. If you’re still alive… please call me. Or come find me. Hell knows if you’ll be able to call me when you get this. I’ll be–
I’ll be at the lighthouse.[end call beep]
[FADE OUT]
[FADE IN]
[♪ MUSIC: All At Sea Theme repeated]ANNOUNCER:
This episode of All At Sea is written and performed by Noah Bell as the voice of February and Cody Heath as the voice of Avalon Martin.
Original music for the show is composed by Butterscotch Bread.
Rowan Odom is our sound designer.
Louis Wolf is our producer.
El Carters is our transcriber.
And show art is designed by Rusty.
If you rate and review us on your podcatcher of choice, you get one message in a bottle from a long lost friend.
Find us on Twitter and Tumblr at All At Sea Pod.
Thank you for listening.[FADE OUT]
[END]
All At SeaEpisode #9
“Captain’s Log: 9”Written by Noah Bell
Sound Design by Rowan Odom
Music by Butterscotch Bread
Transcript by El Carters[FADE IN]
[Sounds of waves]
[♪ MUSIC: All At Sea Theme]ANNOUNCER:
Making Up Leeway presents - All At Sea
Captain’s Log: 9th Entry[FADE OUT]
[Recorder clicks on]
[Continued: Muted sounds of the sea and water lapping at the ship]FEBRUARY:
Call me Captain. This is my log. It is the 14th of November, in the year of our lord 1851.
[short pause]
You know, I- I wish I had a nemesis who was also a multivalent allegory. I don’t think that I would drag my whole crew into chasing after said multivalent allegory and send them to their deaths, but you know.
[a breath]
I wouldn’t be able to gather a whole crew together in the first place, so really…
[scoff]
I mean, I certainly wouldn’t be able to convince them to follow me to their deaths, you know? And there is only place for one twinky guy trying to find meaning in the world on THIS ship. You can’t have another guy come in here and steal my spotlight.[pause]
[breath]But I mean - the thing about Captain Ahab is that he is just so motivated?
Ah, I mean, I suppose you could say the enthusiasm is misplaced? He’s racing like mad after a whale with an undisclosed fetish for feet, or legs or whatever, but… I don’t know, at least he’s chasing after SOMETHING.
I mean, he was incensed about this whale!
The best part is, if you think about it - really think about it - Moby Dick was just whaling around!
He was just having a good time.
A whale of a time, even!
And then one day, THIS guy shows up, zonked out of his gourd with a desire to whale, and Moby Dick’s just like: “that’s enough outta you mate!” and chomps his leg off!
And I respect that! And I bet all the other whales were pretty chuffed about the retribution.
[short pause]
Even me, I would have clapped that whale on the dorsal fin for doing the whole entire world a service.
You couldn’t pay me to go on a whaler, and I’ll tell you that much for free.
[breath]
On that note, have you ever seen a whale? They’re massive!
And yet they don’t go throwing their weight around. They’re the world’s chillest creatures! You wouldn’t even think that they could be violent!
Killer whales aside.
Or that have foot fetishes, but that’s– that–
[breath]
You know?
[short pause]
Whatever.
[breath]
But truly, the world was Melville’s oyster when he wrote this, and plenty of people were able to suspend their disbelief while reading the book so… who am I to judge.
I’m not here to yuck anyone’s yum, after all.
[pause]
Anyway. Ahab - he’s sailin’ away with his crew and twinky narrator in tow. He’s on a mission to get that…. Moby… Dick– And nobody’s going to tell him that he can’t!
It gives him purpose. Purpose, positionality… a heading… Say what you will, that man has a plan and he is STICKING TO IT.
[short pause]
Listen, you might think it’s misguided of me to place the life of a fictional whaler on here as an image of a man with purpose, and I’m certainly not trying to say he’s my role model or whatever, but– igh, I don’t know…
[breath]
I wish I felt that strongly about something?
Anything.
To have purpose, you need to have something that… calls to you, in a way.
Though, I’m actually sure I have it wrong there. Ahab’s whole… um… shtick isn’t purpose, but obsession. A consumptive obsession, which is kinda funny because he does get, quite literally, consumed by his obsession.
And I don’t want that, I don’t think.
I suppose in a way, the idea of being so utterly obsessed with something is quite romantic?
I mean, that’s why people like vampires so much, right? To be loved by something that can consume you? Ah, wait this is getting away from me.
[pause]
So… I’m not trying to be Ahab, not really.
The thing is, apart from aforementioned twinkyness, I’m not even Ishmael. Barring the fact that I have none of the biblical references abound in my life like in his narrative, I’m not at sea because I thought I’d find some meaning here!
I’ve never looked at the vast expanse of the ocean and thought: “ah yes, by boarding a vessel, the gods will grant me answers to all my questions!”.
[short pause]
[scoff]
And what kind of answer does Ishmael even get at the end of it all?
What meaning?
Floating away in a coffin, the god-like-but-in-the-end-quite-human-actually Captain Ahab is dead in the water, cosplaying as the Other Famous Literary Figure To Get Eaten By a Whale, and– all Ishmael has is a story!
That’s no meaning!
That’s just… a weird story about a whale who turned out to be a multivalent allegory, which is NEAT for him because it wouldn’t be the same if the whale wasn’t a multivalent allegory!
[short pause]
So really, at the end of it all, I’m just me.
And even after all my blabbing about wanting purpose, and a heading, and just something to aim for, even if it is a search for meaning, I’m no closer to it! Because yeah, I’m not even searching for meaning.
(loud) What fucking meaning?![pause]
[quick breath](exasperated) Did you know that the alternative title for Moby Dick is just “The Whale”?
The Whale!
All that obsession and that anger and it’s just “The Whale”! What a– What a fucking lame name!What– Who the fuck cares?!
Not me!
I don’t even–! I haven’t even read the book!
(abruptly, irritated) End log!
[Recorder clicks off]
[Pause]
[Recorder click back on]
[Footsteps on carpeted stairs]
[Doors being unlocked and opened]
[Continued: subtle hum of electronic equipment]
[Footsteps as Feb walks in]
[Doors close]
[Footsteps shuffling and fabric rustling]FEBRUARY:
I’m going to try –[Recorder being placed down]FEBRUARY:
–the comms radio again.[Feb picking up the radio]
[Footsteps]
[Fabric rustling]FEBRUARY:
Fuck, ok–
If I could put it like–[Button clicks]
[Continued: Static]
[Feb murmuring to themselves as they browse through different frequencies]
[Weird glitching in the static]FEBRUARY:
No–
Ughm–[uneven, angry breathing]
[Button clicks]
[Static shuts off]FEBRUARY:
Fuck. This. Fuck! EVERYTHING![Feb grunts]
[Radio being slammed on the floor and destroyed]
[Overlayed: weird static that then gets cut off as the radio stops working]
[Feb hyperventilating]FEBRUARY:
Ough– Wh– No– What have I done. What have I done… I– Uh– N–[Distressed breathing]
[Fabric rustling as Feb takes the recorder]
[Recorder clicks off]
[FADE IN]
[♪ MUSIC: All At Sea Theme repeated]ANNOUNCER:
This episode of All At Sea is written and performed by Noah Bell as the voice of February.
Original music for the show is composed by Butterscotch Bread.
Rowan Odom is our sound designer.
Louis Wolf is our producer.
El Carters is our transcriber.
And show art is designed by Rusty.
Rate and review us on your favorite podcatcher for one funny shaped whale.
Please find us on Tumblr and Bluesky at All At Sea Pod. ☺️
Thank you for listening.[FADE OUT]
[END]
All At SeaEpisode #10
“CAPTAIN’S LOG: 10”Written by Noah Bell
Sound Design by Rowan Odom
Music by Butterscotch Bread
Transcript by El Carters[FADE IN]
[Sounds of waves]
[♪ MUSIC: All At Sea Theme - it goes wrong: slowing down, breaking up into static]
[Doors open]
[♪ MUSIC: String, pensive melody]NARRATOR:
A Place As Beautiful As This is a new audio drama side-quest from The Heart Is A Dungeon.[pause]There are no dice in this story, but there are ghosts, love and an unleashed sincerity daring the stars to watch.[pause]Find us.[pause]You won’t regret it.[Radio chatter - flipping through stations, robotic voices that start talking but never finish, radio static and cracking]
[♪ MUSIC: Piano, somber melody]
[Sound of a passing car]NARRATOR:
The way she lived her life left no room for the blade or the charm.PERSON #2:
But… Someone must learn how to love in these spaces.NARRATOR:
She sung to herself:PERSON #2:
♪ Someone must learn how to love in these spaces.
NARRATOR:
♪ (with Person #2) Someone must learn how to love in these spaces.[A far away police siren]
[Music fades]
[Static crackling]
[Doors being closed and locked]
[FADE IN]
[♪ MUSIC: All At Sea Theme transitioning from wrong & distorted to regular]
[Sounds of waves]ANNOUNCER:
Making Up Leeway presents - All At Sea
Captain’s Log - Tenth Entry[FADE OUT]
[Recorder clicks]
[Continued: muted sounds of a ship at sea]
[Echo of the engine room]FEBRUARY:
Captain’s log! Today is the 10th of April. The year? 1912. And this here vessel is sure as hell NOT unsinkable.
But do you know what IS unsinkable? The indomitable human spirit.
Or something. I have that, I’m SO sure. Well, I mean I sure as hell have no other options. If, well– I’ve floated out this current option for long enough and it’s taken me, quite literally, nowhere.
The currents might have taken me one way or another, I’m not too sure, what with my compass being utterly unusable and the stars in the sky remaining stubbornly behind cloud cover–[breath]–but no. For all I know, I’m like, pf, one of those little diagrams that they put in primary school biology textbooks – or like the Fun Fact books, I’m not too sure – of seagulls when they’re drifting on the water in the bay.
I mean, I’ve forgotten the mechanics of it, but–[breath]I still remember the little pictogram that they used to represent the seagull, and the movement of the water.
Whatever the physics behind that one was, the point remained that the seagull was unmoved by the movement of the water. And despite not knowing anything whatsoever about the time I’ve spent here, I have a sneaking suspicion that that’s exactly what I’ve been. Unmoved.[short pause, breath]I was so… sure that the waters would carry me. Movement hadn’t seemed like it was doing anything or had done anything, so. I tried not moving. And instead, I realize now that I was probably in a state of self-induced becalming.
Imagine that!
And I call myself a sailor.
[mocking tone] Oh you can’t be a sailor, your ship has no sails–
[normal tone] Listen, I am the master of my fate and I am the captain of my soul, I can be a sailor if I want to be.[pause]Whatever.
Let’s not get bogged down by the jargon.
The fact of the matter is, I am taking whatever steering wheel there is to take into my own hands. The rudder, if you will.
And this might be a terrible idea. In fact, I might well and truly run out of petrol for the engine, and then eventually die from starvation unless I am able to catch some fish.
WHICH I will have to do the old-fashioned way, because there is no way in hell I will be able to operate–
– because I don’t FEEL like getting all this machinery to work again.[short pause]
But then the thirst, and then the scurvy and it’ll be great. It’ll be so so great.[short pause]These things are just hypotheticals, of course. They MIGHT happen if I don’t go sailing, but they WILL happen if I just continue on like I always have.
Definition of insanity, or what have you.[short pause]The thing about having set out somewhere in the Pacific ocean is that either I am very close to land, or I am drifting towards America and am well and truly stuck in the middle of nowhere.
I’m hoping for the former, but–
Then again, hope is hard to come by in THIS instance because the fact that I was NOT seeing land when I SHOULD have been seeing land is what led me to give up on the whole idea of moving forward in the first place.[chuckling] And now I’m waffling again.[Pause, a breath]
Ah. Well.
As Vusu would say to me, “Hurry your ass up or swim laps”.
[Sound of the recorder being put down]
[Rustling]FEBRUARY:
Ok, so–
[Switches being flipped, buttons presses, knobs turned]FEBRUARY:
And here, and there, and–
[electronic beep][The engine starts up]
[Feb picks up the recorder]
FEBRUARY:
[with laughter] A! Yeah, I’ve done it![laugh]
[Feb runs up the stairs - it goes from wooden steps to metal]FEBRUARY:
I’ve ACTUALLY done it!
[more laughter]
Ohh my gods![Doors swing open and shut]
[Continued, background: blowing wind, working boat engine, waves lapping energetically against the ship]
[Feb’s fast steps on The Deck]FEBRUARY:
[joyful, in a way that feels slightly too enthusiastic] We’re off! Onwards, forwards, ahoy and avast![laughter]
[a little calmer] Let it not be said that I decline forever to the abhorred abode where hope and I part company.[laugh][slightly breathless, but with a smile] No, no, see, the thing is - hope is the thing with feathers! It’s the fucking thing with feathers and I will not sit in a cage anymore!
Aah!
Yeah…
Ah!
Maybe… Maybe… I can find… the lighthouse.
[laugh]
End log.[Recorder clicks off]
[FADE IN]
[♪ MUSIC: All At Sea Theme repeated]ANNOUNCER:
This episode of All At Sea is written and performed by Noah Bell as the voice of February.
Original music for the show is composed by Butterscotch Bread.
Rowan Odom is our sound designer.
Louis Wolf is our producer.
El Carters is our transcriber.
And show art is designed by Rusty.
Rate and review us on your favorite podcatcher for wave noises with express delivery.
Please, find us on Tumblr and Bluesky at All At Sea Pod.
Thank you for listening.
[FADE OUT]
[END]
All At SeaEpisode #11
“CAPTAIN’S LOG: 11”Written by Noah Bell
Sound Design by Rowan Odom
Music by Butterscotch Bread
Transcript by El Carters[FADE IN]
[Sounds of waves]
[♪ MUSIC: All At Sea Theme]
ANNOUNCER:
Making Up Leeway presents - All At Sea
Captain’s Log - 11th Entry
[FADE OUT]
[Recorder clicks]
[Continued: Sounds of a ship at sea, engine running, wind hailing]FEBRUARY:
Captain’s– oh, no, wait–[Footsteps on the deck as Feb walks up to the door]
[Door opens]
[Feb steps inside]
[Door closes]
[Continued: muffled sounds of a ship at sea, engine running, wind hailing]
[Feb walks through a carpeted floor up a set of stairs]
[Another door opens]
[Feb steps inside]
[Door closes]
[Continued: Subtle machine humming]
[Chair creaks as they sit down]FEBRUARY:
That’s it. I forget it’s noisy out there now.
Anywho.
Captain’s log! Today is the 2nd of February 2000. Nothing happened on this day, and nobody cared. It was an ordinary day. Particularly snowy in Alaska perhaps. Particularly sunny in Australia, too.[short pause]But then again, you’d be hard pressed to find a non-sunny day in Australia – or so I’ve heard.
[pause]
Things I’ve noticed since actually moving:
One, I think I might be well and truly lost.
When I tell you there is no sighting of land, I mean I have seen absolutely fuck all since making my rather dramatic decision to throw all my fuel to the wind. And by that I mean, I haven’t thrown all my fuel to the wind, that would be EXTREMELY ill-advised and downright terrible for the environment-
Two…
Actually, there is no second point. There has been nothing, and I mean NOTHING else to notice. I feel like an idiot, actually, spending my days on deck staring out over what is undoubtedly the middle of the Pacific ocean, wishing for something, anything to see.
A buoy. A rock.
I haven’t even seen any whales even! No dolphins either, but I have an icicle’s chance in hell of seeing them if I am as deep in as I suspect I am. Metaphorically and, literally, that is.[short pause]
I haven’t even seen that mutinous fishbone again.
[pause]
I mean. I would have at least thought that I’d catch sight of A bird. At least one?
But no, auh- No birds, no fish, no whales, no sharks, no sun, no nothing.[scoff-laugh]
I’d even take the sight of a whaler now. Even though whalers suck and I’ll explode them with my mind…
Which is probably not the best thing to put on what is supposed to be a professional log… oh but who cares.
IF there is anyone who will listen to this, and who knows a non-zero amount about fishing, I bet they’re probably saying–
[Imitating another person] “February, you’re on a longliner, doesn’t that make you just as bad?”
First off, I’m offended. Second off, that was a lie, I’m not really offended, but–
To be honest… no? The one thing I actually liked about the Zenith and why I wanted to join the crew was because it wasn’t such an exploitative business that Laufey had going–[abrupt pause]I mean– No! Do you really think I’d run a ship where I was pulling the sea empty? Absolutely not. The Zenith is a local ship, I supply primarily for independent businesses and restaurants in and around Alaska. I’m not part of some massive company… or anything?
[pause]
Ah, this is all besides the point anyway. Which was…
Oh, yeah, my point.
I haven’t seen anything or anyone in the sea at all. I could ignore it, of course, when I was still in my state of self-becalming, but–[short breath]–now? Not even a BIRD?
I don’t know. It seems fishy.
Hphah. A pun.
[short pause]
Anyways. End log.[Recorder clicks off]
[FADE IN]
[♪ MUSIC: All At Sea Theme repeated]ANNOUNCER:
This episode of All At Sea is written and performed by Noah Bell as the voice of February.
Original music for the show is composed by Butterscotch Bread.
Rowan Odom is our sound designer.
Louis Wolf is our producer.
El Carters is our transcriber.
And show art is designed by Rusty.
Rate and review us on your favorite podcatcher… for seaweed! 😊
Please, find us on Tumblr and Bluesky at All At Sea Pod.
Thank you for listening.[FADE OUT]
[END]
All At SeaEpisode #12
“CAPTAIN’S LOG: 12th Entry”Written by Noah Bell
Sound Design by Rowan Odom
Music by Butterscotch Bread
Transcript by El Carters[FADE IN]
[Sounds of waves]
[♪ MUSIC: All At Sea Theme - it goes wrong: slowing down, breaking up into static]
[Doors open]
[♪ MUSIC: Paddleboat theme]
[Continued: ambient sounds of the outside, cars driving past somewhere in the near distance, people chatting]NARRATOR:
When I go running to the top of the hill all I see is this- this need.
Because… Whenever I… run to the top of the hill I feel like I can get out of the city and I feel like I’ve been in the city too long? Because… any time I run and I see space and places and people and things all I feel the need to do is point and go “oh! It’s a sheep!” or “oh look! It’s a little pony!” or…
“It’s the sea”…
And the sea is vast. And the sea is… enormous and the sea is so distant and it’s not even a mystery it’s just… huge. D’You have any idea what it feels like to be in a city that you view as huge and then look out at a SEA? At an ocean? And feel suddenly… small.
Not just small but insignificant, but not so insignificant, but an atom in a city in a world that the sea exists in?[pause]
And then I feel so… tired.[pause]I just want to go home.[pause]Paddleboat is a microfiction podcast created by Rhys Lawton and James Curtis. It is produced by Rhys Lawton and James Curtis and with very very special thanks to CL Hendry.
It’s just the– It’s just the thing with people trying their best, okay?
It’s available at Paddleboat Podcast… wherever… wherever everything is… and… we try.[Static crackling]
[Doors being closed and locked]
[FADE IN]
[♪ MUSIC: All At Sea Theme transitioning from wrong & distorted to regular]
[Sounds of waves]ANNOUNCER:
Making Up Leeway presents - All At Sea
Captain’s Log - Twelve Entry[FADE OUT]
[Recorder clicks]
[Continued: muted sounds of a ship at sea]
[Echo of the engine room, board creaking]FEBRUARY:
Captain’s log. Today is May 17th. The year? [imitating a southern accent] Nineteen-hundred, ladies and gentlefolk. And boy-howdy wouldn’t you know it, we ain’t in Kansas anymore.[pause]I’ve been thinking about the cloud cover. It is constant.
I don’t know when the last time was that I saw the sun. Especially with time having done what it did, I… can’t say for certain how long the cover has been there. I mean, obviously it came after the storm, but seeing as I don’t even know what day it is, I don’t think I can make an educated guess?[short pause, scoff]Much less an uneducated one.
Whatever the clouds are made of, it’s powerful stuff. I spent an entire day out on deck in the week after the rains had stopped, and nothing. No sunburn whatsoever. Which didn’t make sense. Because you know, when there’s light, but no rain, and the clouds are covering the sky – that’s when you get burnt.
I remember putting up a big ole fuss each time we had athletics day at my school, not wanting to wear sunscreen because I hated how it felt on my skin, it made me feel all wriggly and wrong, and how it was cloudy anyway. And Ben would go on a long lecture about how cloudy days are the days you’ve got to look out for, because they’re the days that really burn you, since you wouldn’t be watching out for the sun and meanwhile the UV rays are turning you into bacon.
So of course, me on this ship with my bottle of AfterSun decided to test that theory once more.
Like I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be 17 with a nose that was flaking skin like it was shedding season. But nothing happened.
Which–
Heh.
Time for a drinking game! Take a shot every time I say about, phh, I don’t know, anything at all that it “didn’t make sense” and then when you’ve finished that game, you can play a game called Try Not To Die From Alcohol Poisoning![short pause]Before starting, please bequeath unto me all of your mortal possessions. Except if you have a collection of Russian nesting dolls, in which case - I don’t want those.[shudders]
[short pause]But as I was saying–
The cloud cover. Honestly, if I weren’t so sure that I am of sound mind and body, I would’ve probably guessed that I had fallen out of the world I grew up in, and into some strange parallel plane of existence. Some sort of… purgatory.
[short pause, light scoff]
It sure feels like purgatory.
Trapped on a boat, with nothing but the sea around me, water and food abound, sure, fuel too, but just enough so I’m never fully secure of whether or not my survival is guaranteed in this weird liminal space.
It’s like some strange, pseudo-Tantalus situation.
You know–
that guy from Greek mythology who’s stuck in the afterlife with a tree laden with delicious fruit just out of his reach?
And I’m alone.
I’ve always said that I want to be alone, which is all good and well and I can function on my own - always have, always will - but being alone is something completely different from being lonely.
Being alone is something I’ve always been quite good at, I think? You can teach yourself how to blend into the background.
Avalon wouldn’t let me get away with it though, but then again nobody could be invisible next to him. A real chase-away-the-darkness kind of person. More than that though, I think they just see through my bullshit.
When I got this job, by the sheer luck of complaining to Vusu about something fully unrelated – and I told Avalon, I told them that I’d be at sea for 6 months of the year, every year… there was just something in the way they looked at me.
I– I think they could tell—[pause]Man… maybe I shouldn’t have thrown fishbone overboard.
[short pause, a quiet breath]
End log.[Recorder clicks off]
[FADE IN]
[♪ MUSIC: All At Sea Theme repeated]ANNOUNCER:
This episode of All At Sea is written and performed by Noah Bell as the voice of February.
Original music for the show is composed by Butterscotch Bread.
Rowan Odom is our sound designer.
Louis Wolf is our producer.
El Carters is our transcriber.
And show art is designed by Rusty.
Rate and review us on your favorite podcatcher for one certified February hat to protect you from the sun. 🌞
Please, find us on Tumblr and Bluesky at All At Sea Pod.
Thank you for listening.[FADE OUT]
[END]
All At SeaEpisode #13
“CAPTAIN’S LOG: 13”Written by Noah Bell
Sound Design by Rowan Odom
Music by Butterscotch Bread
Transcript by El Carters[FADE IN]
[♪ MUSIC: All At Sea Theme]
[Sounds of waves]ANNOUNCER:
Making Up Leeway presents - All At Sea
Captain’s Log - Thirteenth Entry[FADE OUT]
[Recorder clicks on]
[Continued: sounds of a ship at sea, muted sounds of a running boat engine]
[Recorder clicks off]
[Recorder clicks on again]
[Continued: muted sounds of a ship at sea]FEBRUARY:
Captain’s log.
Today is the day, the sun is shining, the tank is clean. 2003. Not to be confused with 2004. Happens to me every time.[chair creaks as Feb sits forward]FEBRUARY:
I mean, the sun isn’t shining, but if this world is a simulation and simulation in this case is me, sat on a ship that’s sat on the water that’s been poured into a bottle that’s been put onto the shelf of a god… then I hope the bottle is clean.
[short pause]
Maybe it isn’t. Maybe my ship in their bottle is on a part of the shelf that the god forgets to dust. And that’s why the sun isn’t shining.
It’s all dust.[pause]The thing is - apart from the sun not shining… there are no weather phenomena. And I mean none.
Well, you know. Apart from the exception which was the rains, but since then–[short pause]Actually, I’ve come to realise that I can bracket many things in this world into Before The Rains and After The Rains. Well–
This is another After The Rains bit.
I know it’s all dramatic in films when the character is on a boat, and they encounter a storm. They just see the clouds rolling in and everyone starts to panic, you know? Wind picks up and the crew scatters across the deck, tightening down loose objects and making sure everything is secure around the ship.
Makes for some good storytelling. Some real tense moments, which is… why I guess they have them in there.
It doesn’t really happen anymore? But then again – I don’t really know of any nautically themed films set in the modern day. Probably because it makes for less dramatic storytelling. Mostly because we have advanced forecasting equipment that tells us when to go out, when there is a possibility of a storm, and how safe it will be to go out. You’ll also be hard pressed to find a captain worth their salt and integrity willing to go out when there is a chance of sailing into a storm.
Which is why I’m convinced that the people who post those videos online about sailing right into a rogue wave are the same breed of people who chase tornadoes, you know? Storm chasers. The same kind of people who set up their tents to hang on sheer cliff-faces, for… some reason, or who enjoy caving of all things! No, thanks.
All so you can get a cool shot of the prow getting fully submerged in water, and the audience of your video can feel vicarious adrenaline from the safety of their bed at 2am.
Which, you know, far be it from me to judge. I love living vicariously through strangers on the internet at 2am. Or I used to, anyway.[short pause]Anyway, I’m getting off topic again. Since there is no identifiable weather phenomena I can see on the horizon, and since my nav systems as well as – you guessed it – my forecaster – is MIA in their ability to predict or inform me about… anything, I’ve just been wondering if I can try to… find a storm.
So far, no cigar. I’ve not been able to find a storm, or run into one, or have any rogue waves wash over my prow in video-ready fashion.
I’ve tried changing course multiple times, but I suppose this is the equivalent of walking in a desert. Or a forest.
I could be walking – or sailing – in circles.
Or I am just stuck in a ship stuck in a bottle stuck on the shelf of a cosmic being who became bored of shaking us around and now dust has gathered on the glass.
[staticky sounds creep in, faintly]
End log.[Recorder clicks off]
[FADE IN]
[♪ MUSIC: All At Sea Theme repeated]ANNOUNCER:
This episode of All At Sea is written and performed by Noah Bell as the voice of February.
Original music for the show is composed by Butterscotch Bread.
Rowan Odom is our sound designer.
Louis Wolf is our producer.
El Carters is our transcriber.
And show art is designed by Rusty.
Rate and review us on your favorite podcatcher for one singular, identifiable weather phenomenon.
Please, find us on Tumblr and Bluesky at All At Sea Pod.
Thank you for listening.[FADE OUT]
[END]
All At SeaEpisode #13
“CAPTAIN’S LOG: 14”Written by Noah Bell
Sound Design by Rowan Odom
Music by Butterscotch Bread
Transcript by El Carters[FADE IN]
[♪ MUSIC: All At Sea Theme]
[Sounds of waves]ANNOUNCER:
Making Up Leeway presents - All At Sea
Captain’s Log - Fourteenth Entry[FADE OUT]
[Recorder clicks on]
[Continued: muted sounds of a ship at sea, muted sounds of a running boat engine]FEBRUARY:
Captain’s log! Today? Well, it’s the New Year’s Eve in the 1950s! Which one of the 50s? I don’t know, stop asking me, we’re drunk in someone’s flat in a building in New York and men are kissing men, and women are kissing women, and I’m questioning my gender, and I’m hopelessly in love with my best friend, and the host of the party has just discovered Marxism? He–
[giggle] He’s explaining it to anyone who will listen to him, so how am I supposed to know the year?
I’ll be writing it incorrectly on forms for at least the next month, anyway.
Cheers.[sound of alcohol sloshing around in a bottle as FEBRUARY takes a swig from it]FEBRUARY:
[swallowing down the liquor] I’m not American, but I’ve always thought America is probably nowhere more exciting and invigorating than in the way that it’s advertised. I mean…, reading a quote unquote “All-American” novel surely is a much more thrilling experience than what it might have felt like living through the events of the book. It’s also, more often than not, incredibly problematic and just… so whitewashed.
But really, there are not many countries in the world that can boast… so much space,you know? Like, the way America does? Traversable space, I should add.
The colonisers spent sooo much time making it “traversable”, or well, traversable for them anyway. For that specific kind of movement? Building railroads, exploiting people. Setting up towns during the gold rush. Classic coloniser stuff. And somehow, through all the western novels, and the historical accounts with a clear bias, and the forging of a great American ideal, you have… the roadtrip novel. I mean, not that I’ve read that many.
[pause]
But–[sound of the bottle being picked up as February takes another drink]FEBRUARY:
The one that comes to mind, is like Jack Kerouac’s “On The Road”? I had to read it for a class. All I remember of that novel was the main guy drinking, and driving a whole lot, and never had any money, and Karl Marx. I mean Karl Marx wasn’t in the book, of course, but there was this one guy who everyone was in love with – his name was Dean, because of course – and like he had a friend who was supposed to be Karl Marx?
Dhg, no wait, I-uh- no that was– The guy in the book was called Carlo Marx, and he was supposed to be like a stand-in for Kerouac’s real-life friend, Allen Ginsberg. You know, the guy who’s like “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving, hysterical, naked –” that guy? I’m pretty sure he did some messed up shit too. I had to read him for that same class...[pause]
[Fabric shuffle as Feb moves]FEBRUARY:
The point I am making, of course, is that a road trip story makes for entertaining reading when you set it in America, and have it follow an ensemble caaast of eclectic and unhinged group of friends with like a lust for life? They get into trouble, do various problematic things, the main kind- the main kind? The main guy is kind of bland and so it’s easy for the reader to project themselves onto like a… a blank canvas of a point-of-view, and… it’s fun. Entertaining.
This? This right here?[February knocks on the window, and kicks bits of the smashed up radio still laying on the ground]FEBRUARY:
This does not make for an entertaining story! It might have done, sure, if there was an ensemble cast, and things to see, and people to meet, and drinks to be drunk with friends,and FOSHI– Fio– Fi– Fio– VOC ships to try and burn to the ground as me and my merry-band of pirates laugh uproariously in the face of contemporary society.[short pause]Hell, maybe even if there were ports, I could make stops and experience variety there. Meet people,and see strange cliffs that make the howling wind sound like a wailing woman, and discover the ghost of a widow in the caves.
Instead I’m… I’m the anti-that It would seem.
I’m not someone that things happen to.
Nobody will knock on the door of my proverbial hobbit-hole with a company of dwarves and tell me to slay a dragon. I’m not even the main guy who gets approached by a problematic, charismatic friend and sets off on a weird, drug-induced adventure.
I’m just Feb. Stuck on a boat, alone.
With my supply of brandy half-drunk.[pause]
I’m just here.[to the tune of Auld Lang Syne] I’m here, because I’m here, because I’m here, because I’m here
[singing turns to mumbling then stops][The wind blows muffled against the windows. Sloshing of the alcohol as February lifts the bottle to their lips, but doesn’t drink]
[sigh]
[the bottle slightly knocks on the wood of the floor as Feb sets it down]FEBRUARY:
[resigned] End log.[Recorder clicks off]
[FADE IN]
[♪ MUSIC: All At Sea Theme repeated]ANNOUNCER:
This episode of All At Sea is written and performed by Noah Bell as the voice of February.
Original music for the show is composed by Butterscotch Bread.
Rowan Odom is our sound designer.
Louis Wolf is our producer.
El Carters is our transcriber.
And show art is designed by Rusty.
Rate and review us on your favorite podcatcher for one good roadtrip novel .
Please, find us on Tumblr and Bluesky at All At Sea Pod.
Thank you for listening.[FADE OUT]
[END]
All At SeaEpisode #15
“CAPTAIN’S LOG: 15”Written by Noah Bell
Sound Design by Rowan Odom
Music by Butterscotch Bread
Transcript by El Carters[FADE IN]
[♪ MUSIC: All At Sea Theme]
[Sounds of waves]ANNOUNCER:
Making Up Leeway presents - All At Sea
Captain’s Log - Fifteenth Entry[FADE OUT]
[Recorder clicks on]
[Continued: muted sounds of a ship at sea - no engine running]
[Zipper being zipped up, then another]
[A clipping in of a security line]
[Footsteps on the deck]
[A fabric rustle, a metal cling]FEBRUARY:
Woah! Okay, okay. Yeah. There is nothing there and you’ll be so fine… Okay,hm– pro divers fall in backwards, right? Never been professional at anything though, have you? Why start now?Okay. Mhmhmhmhm. Yep. Yep yep yep yep yep yep yep.
Okay. Allons-y![Feb jumps off the deck and into the water - we hear the line following them and then a splash as the sound mutes under the waves]
[After a short moment we - and Feb- emerge back up, the sound goes back to normal and there’s a splash of water]FEBRUARY:
Whoa, that’s cold! Okay, okay, here we go. Shit! Okay, I can do this–[deep breath]
[Feb dives back underwater and the sound mutes again under the waves]
[With the sounds of the waves under the water we hear static and disruption until–][CUT TO][Recorder clicks on again]
[Continued: muted sounds of a ship at sea]
[Muted footsteps on the deck]
[Doors being unlocked and opened]
[Wet steps on the wooden floor, then a rustle as Feb sits down]FEBRUARY:
Captain’s log.
Today is the 3rd of “one of those days” and the year is… “a long, long time ago”, which I am contract bound to let you know can only be said while staring off into the middle distance while a distressed lover looks at me with a pained expression.[pause]
[long sigh]I didn’t know what to expect, really, when I jumped into the ocean. I think I’m still a little drunk and only kind of high on the decisions I've made in the past few… units of unidentifiable time. Maybe I thought that I’d open my eyes under water, and then, after realising what a horrible idea it is to open your eyes in saltwater, I’d see the blurry shape of a large, indescribably vast and unthinkable creature, and I would realise my insignificance in the world and be swallowed whole by a Leviathan.
Hic sunt dracones, and all of that.
[short pause]
Okay – hear me out – not a wild thing for me to believe, okay? Not a wild thing at all. The unexplored ocean? The vastness of the waters themselves? Hey, maybe there are parts we haven’t sailed before. Maybe I’ve been stuck in the Bermuda Triangle all this time.
And I hear you, field recorder. Your voice comes to me at night like a vision from an angry god. This time asking me, “how can that be, you’re in the Pacific ocean?” and to that I say what I always say – shut up.
I can’t be fooled with science, I’m a person of stories, and by stories I will abide.[pause]Annnyway, this really is a kind of “hear me out” situation – not about the Bermuda triangle thing, but about the vast unexplored territories thing.
There is just so much ocean.
I don’t think people realise just how much ocean there is? You know it in a nebulous, this-will-never-be-relevant-to-me kind of way, but, agh, really, there is so much water.
And trust me, I’m an expert in the ways of water at this point.
What if there were sea monsters! We couldn’t possibly be sure. People talk this way about alien life, you know, about how it isn’t possible that we’re the only planet in the entire galaxy with intelligent life forms, but… I kind of feel the same way about the sea?
There is just so much of it, depths that it goes to that we can’t, because if we tried we’d get imploded immediately, whatever flimsy craft we’ve constructed crunching down on us, pulverising us instantly.
Maybe sea monsters are just living in the depths, you know? There’s a lot of ocean and we’re still discovering new species of frogs in the rainforests! Anything could happen![short pause]Maybe not cthulhu, but I would put good money on a leviathan.[Feb picks the recorder up]
[excited]And a giant squid! Oh my gods a giant squid! Fun Feb Fact, I used to want to become a marine biologist! Just because I was so obsessed with the idea of a giant squid! The fact that like, a creature like that exists in the waters of our world and yet we are still wholly unable to observe it in any meaningful way? I m– We have to rely on dead specimens washed up on shore, or those stories of whales that are found beached with giant sucker marks on their bodies, or ,I think, there was even this one sperm whale like a whole bunch of time ago with an entire tentacle in its stomach.
Man, I love giant squid.
And that’s my point really – if giant squid, why not world serpent?[pause]
[slightly disappointed]I didn’t see anything though.
The water was cold, really cold, but I don’t have a benchmark for how cold the ocean is supposed to be this deep in. It’s not like I regularly take a dive off the deck, so there is no control… sample or whatever. It’s not [spooky voice] colder than it should have been, [normal voice] but it was pretty darn cold.[pause]It was just so… nothing. I don’t know how to explain it. Obviously, when you’re at sea, you don’t keep bumping into a shark at every left turn but…[snort-laugh] Gods, I’m turning into my grandmother. I’m sure I’ve said this before. All I do is come on here and tell the same old story, over and over, like I’ve forgotten my audience has heard it before. There are no birds, there are no animals, there are no ships, there are no plants, there are no cosmic horror creatures lurking deep beneath, ready to pull me–
[hesitant breath]
Well. There are no animals, or ships or birds or seaweeds.
Come to think of it, there isn’t even any plastic. Which, I mean, I know there was the great eco-rebellion of 2034, but…
All that ever accomplished was that they finally got some gazillionaire to clean the Pacific garbage patch. And then once that was over nothing changed and nobody stopped pumping their toxic gases into the sky and sea.[pause]What people don’t understand about the world is that the climate crisis isn’t something that will be solved by individual action.
Although of course that doesn’t absolve anyone from not doing their part in taking care of the planet, but–
What I mean is that this situation is larger than us. Unless all of the corporations and all of the businesses and governments in all of the world decide together that they will commit to total and radical systemic restructuring – nothing will change.
Because people are greedy and going back a 100 years technologically while we wait for the world to relearn how to operate in a way that is kinder to the planet and the people on it will be bad for profit margins![sad chuckle]Would you look at me. On my soapbox. Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
This log has gotten away from me again.
End log.[Recorder clicks off]
[FADE IN]
[♪ MUSIC: All At Sea Theme repeated]ANNOUNCER:
This episode of All At Sea is written and performed by Noah Bell as the voice of February.
Original music for the show is composed by Butterscotch Bread.
Rowan Odom is our sound designer.
Louis Wolf is our producer.
El Carters is our transcriber.
And show art is designed by Rusty.
Rate and review us on your favorite podcatcher for the impossible calendar that February is somehow operating on. 😆
Please, find us on Tumblr and Bluesky at All At Sea Pod.
Thank you for listening.[FADE OUT]
[END]
All At SeaEpisode #16
“CAPTAIN’S LOG: 16”Written by Noah Bell
Sound Design by Rowan Odom
Music by Butterscotch Bread
Transcript by El Carters[FADE IN]
[♪ MUSIC: All At Sea Theme]
[Sounds of waves]ANNOUNCER:
Making Up Leeway presents - All At Sea
Captain’s Log - Sixteenth Entry[FADE OUT]
[Recorder clicks on]
[Continued: muted sounds of a ship at sea with a running engine]FEBRUARY:
[frantically] Ohhh my gods! Oh my gods. No way, no fuuuucking way! Okay, okay!
Oh shit, my heading’s wrong.[Running steps across the deck]
[Opening and then closing the wheelhouse door]
[Cling of the recorder being placed down]
[Steering wheel being turned]
[Pause]
[The recorder being picked up again]
[Running steps to the outside, the doors open and close as the steps continue on the deck of the ship]FEBRUARY:
No way. No way– Okay. Okay.
So– Captain’s log. I guess? Because–
This is buckwild.
Okay, so– I am heading in… a direction because I still sure as shit can’t use my nav systems or my compass, but that’s besides the point because I can see what I’m heading towards.
Today is the first day of the start of the rest of my life in the year of one step for man, one giant leap for mankind because I. See. Land.
[gleefully] I’m seeing land!
And, not just that–
[slightly surprised] –there’s a light.
That’s how I saw it. I was in the crow’s nest, looking out into the middle distance and thinking about how cool and dramatic I must look if only someone were here to capture my likeness in a portrait and call it the Lonely Fisherman or whatnot– It– Anyway. Anyway.
[incredibly hopeful] That’s the last thing that’s important right now, because I have a heading, there is a light shining through the fog rising over the waters and I have somewhere to go![Pause]
[Recorder clicks off]
[Recorder clicks back on]
[Continued: sounds of the ship at sea with it’s engine running]FEBRUARY:
Okay, so–
I’ve come close enough to be able to see my destination and somehow this is one of the strangest things I’ve seen – okay technically I haven’t been seeing much of anything but that’s besides the point.[short, quick breath]There is someone sitting on a rock that’s just… jutting? Out of the water? Though it looks suspiciously not-rock-like, but I don’t know what else it could be, and there is a person.
A person, on the rock, holding a fog light.
I’m so confused.[Pause]
[Running footsteps on the deck, that then stop abruptly]FEBRUARY:
Hey! Ahoy![Pause]PERSON:
[from further away, surprised] Ahoy!FEBRUARY:
[aside] I think I’m, um, going to pass out, um–
[to the person] Hey! I- I saw your light. D-D-Do you need a ride?PERSON:
[from further away] That would be fortuitous, yes.FEBRUARY:
Who the fuck says fortuitous?PERSON:
Sorry?FEBRUARY:
Nothing! Nothing! Hold on![Running steps across the deck as Feb, with breaths of effort, gathers up a length of rope]FEBRUARY:
Okay, so–
I’m going to cut the engines once I get close enough, and- and then I’ll throw you a rope!PERSON:
[confused] I- I’m sorry, what?FEBRUARY:
Y-You’re going to have to do a Tarzan, I’m afraid!PERSON:
[confounded] Do– a Tarzan? What on earth!?FEBRUARY:
Umm… I– I’m going to tie the rope to the crow’s nest, and then throw you the other end of the line, so you can swing onto the deck. Otherwise I might crash against… whatever that thing you’re sitting on is! Um– speaking of, hold on![Runnings steps on the deck, as Feb goes to cut the engines of the ship]PERSON:
[as Feb runs, voice fading] Are you quite sure?[Recorder clicks off again]
[Recorder clicks on once more]
[Continued: Sounds of the ship with no engine running, water lapping, slight breeze in the air]
[Footsteps on a metal ladder]
[Zipper being zipped up]
[Footsteps up the ladder again]
[Jump to the deck and then running footsteps on the deck that eventually halt]FEBRUARY:
Okay, I’m going to lasso this rope up to you!PERSON:
Are you… sure about this?FEBRUARY:
Do you have any other ideas?[Pause]
[Water lapping up the boat and the mysterious Thing the person is sitting on]FEBRUARY:
Hello??PERSON:
[resigned to their fate] Oh fine! Throw it up.[Feb grunts while tossing the rope up]
[Rope stretching sound as the person catches it]FEBRUARY:
Okay, swing down!PERSON:
[uncertain] Give me a second.[Feb taps their feet on the deck and huffs in a impatient waiting stim]PERSON:
Alright. I am on my way down![Pause]
[Subtle sound of a person swinging on a rope]
[A loud thud of a person landing on the deck]FEBRUARY:
[impressed] Woah. You didn’t even scream.PERSON:
[standing up and brushing themselves off] Well yes. What would have been the point?FEBRUARY:
[in disbelief] Ha, Ha Hy…! It worked! It worked! I– I can’t believe it worked!
And… you’re real.PERSON:
[firm, abrupt] DO NOT… poke me.FEBRUARY:
[laughing nervously] Sorry! It’s just– well– who– ju– what the fuck?
[without catching a breath] Who are you and what is this and how did you get onto that structure…? It– I thought it was a rock but it looks like a lighthouse? Although I don’t think lighthouses are usually mostly submerged beneath the waters? And I like your bag– And… Did– Where did you put the fog light? Did you put the fog light back into your bag?
Ohhh! I like your pins! All pronouns, nice![A long awkward pause]FEBRUARY (CONT’D):
At what point does this weird staring contest become awkward?PERSON:
What is… your name?FEBRUARY:
Oh, uh, um… February. February March.[Pause]PERSON:
[deadpan, but with a raised eyebrow] What.FEBRUARY:
[confused] What?PERSON:
Are you… kidding?FEBRUARY:
N-no, I’m not kiddin– [confused sounds] Do you think I’m lying to you about my name?PERSON:
Umm, I think I will be taking my chances on the sinking lighthouse actually so I’mm–[Fabric rustle as the person turns around but then a clasp as Feb stops them by the arm]FEBRUARY:
Hey– wait, hold up, okay! I promise, I’m not having you on – or anything, really. My name is February and who the fuck cares what my surname is just– please don’t go.
You’re the– You’re the first person I’ve seen in… gods know how long and I… just don’t want to be alone on this stupid boat anymore.[Pause]
[The wind blows a little harder and the waves crash a bit louder against the lighthouse and the ship]PERSON:
On… one condition.FEBRUARY:
[tentatively] Uh– What?PERSON:
What’s… your middle name?FEBRUARY:
[annoyed] …what.PERSON:
Because if your middle name is January–FEBRUARY:
[cutting in] Oh my gods please don’t tell me that you actually think that– !PERSON:
[overlapping, they sound amused] I don’t think that. Do you really think that I would think that?FEBRUARY:
[annoyed but humorous] Okay, smart guy, what’s your name?PERSON:
Sturgeon Fisher.FEBRUARY:
Sturge– Sturgeon– Sturgeon Fish– OH– Oh my gods and you gave me grief?STURGEON:
[dismissive] I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about.[Pause]FEBRUARY:
Are you going to answer any of my questions?STURGEON:
Is that… a field… recorder?FEBRUARY:
That’s not an answer.STURGEON:
That is a field recorder! What are you recording?FEBRUARY:
Nothing, nothing! I’m not recording and even if I was it would be fine, because I am the captain of this vessel. So.STURGEON:
[close in our ears] Let me look at it.FEBRUARY:
Nonono, don’–[Recorder clicks off]
[FADE IN]
[♪ MUSIC: All At Sea Theme repeated]ANNOUNCER:
This episode of All At Sea is written by Noah Bell and performed by Noah Bell as the voice of February March and Butterscotch Bread as the voice of Sturgeon Fisher.
Original music for the show is composed by Butterscotch Bread.
Rowan Odom is our sound designer.
Louis Wolf is our producer.
El Carters is our transcriber.
And show art is designed by Rusty.
Please rate and review us on your favorite podcatcher to give one character in this show a normal name. 😆
Find us on Tumblr and Bluesky at All At Sea Pod.
Thank you for listening.[FADE OUT]
[END]
All At SeaEpisode #17
“CAPTAIN’S LOG: 17”Written by Noah Bell
Sound Design by Rowan Odom
Music by Butterscotch Bread
Transcript by El Carters[FADE IN]
[♪ MUSIC: All At Sea Theme]
[Sounds of waves]ANNOUNCER:
Making Up Leeway presents - All At Sea
Captain’s Log - Seventeenth Entry[FADE OUT]
[Recorder clicks on]
[Continued: muted sounds of a ship at sea from up high, the wind most pronounced and sounds of lines and metal hooks occasionally hitting the mast can be heard]FEBRUARY:
Captain’s log –[sound of a seagull in the sky]FEBRUARY (CONT’D):
– today’s the first day of the month of the Great Meeting in the year of I-still—can’t-believe-I’m-continuing-this-bit. And yesterday, I found someone.[short pause]Right now I’m sitting in the crows’ nest. He woke up at the crack of dawn and started snooping everywhere and anywhere on this boat. And I drew the line when he came into my space.[beat]By “drew the line” of course I meant that I fled up here.
I– [awkward chuckle] I don’t think I’m fully aware that there is someone else on the Zenith with me, to be honest. It-It’s been just me for so long…[beat]I dunno. They seem… nice?
No, I’m lying, nice is not the word to describe that whacko. Uptight? Emotionless? Analytical? Yeah.[beat]Although, he does seem to have a sense of humour, so really that’s the only thing I need to cohabitate with someone on the ocean in the middle of nowhere.[short pause]It wasn’t a rock they were on, by the way. I think the recorder caught it yesterday before I had to switch it off, but they had been sitting on top of a lighthouse. You know, the tall tower that people usually put on dangerous spots to stop ships from crashing into rocks when they come too close? Yeah. Have they explained any of this to me? No. Instead, I will now provide a scientifically accurate dramatisation of our conversation.[clears throat]Hey, Sturgeon, how come you were on a lighthouse that appeared to be 85% submerged in water, isn’t that kind of weird?
(mimicking Sturgeon) No.
(normal voice) Aren’t most lighthouses that are still operational usually near a town, or a cliffside port? How come none of that was visible? Does this just happen to be a relic of the times before we had sensors and the like?
(mimicking Sturgeon) Well –STURGEON:
(interrupting) Are you mimicking me?FEBRUARY:
[a noise of surprise]
Noooooo?[footsteps on metal as Sturgeon climbs the last few rungs of the crows nest ladder]
[Fabric rustle as he sits down]STURGEON:
Are you recording again?FEBRUARY:
Yes. And don’t try to take my recorder this time.STURGEON:
I won’t.FEBRUARY:
Good. Good.STURGEON:
This is quite a large ship.FEBRUARY:
I mean, no larger than she needs to be.STURGEON:
Did you know she/her pronouns are more often used to signify ownership over things. In boats it’s particularly interesting, because the general rule is that while the vessel is under construction one refers to it with it/its pronouns. Only when the boat has been launched for the first time and is fully operational, then she/her pronouns are used. Thus, you can reason that the it/its pronouns suffice while the vessel is of no use to its owners, but once it is functional enough to be owned, then she/her pronouns are in order.FEBRUARY:
…Right.STURGEON:
Yes. I think you should call your ship by he/him pronouns.FEBRUARY:
(audibly smiling) The first ever transgender ship to sail the seven seas?STURGEON:
I think that is good.FEBRUARY:
You don’t have to be so formal with me, you know.STURGEON:
I’m not… being formal?FEBRUARY:
Yes you are! You’re speaking like I’m going to grade you in received pronunciation or whatever.STURGEON:
(hesitating) I-I don’t… mean… to?FEBRUARY:
[light chuckle]
What, did you grow up surrounded by doctors and scientists?STURGEON:
Yes, actually.FEBRUARY:
No way! You’re a scientist? Aren’t you a little young to be a scientist?STURGEON:
I’m a marine biologist, actually, and even if I were not, I would not be too young to be a scientist. I was… I am an assistant to Professor Robin King at The Institute of Oceanographic Study.FEBRUARY:
Was?STURGEON:
Am.FEBRUARY:
Okay, okay, I get it.
Well, that being the case, I still think that you should at least use contractions when speaking to me, I’m not about to dole out a grade to you or anything.STURGEON:
But you are busy recording a log. I assume… it is… official?
If you hand it back in to your superiors, and they go through the data, then they will hear me and there is always the chance they will report back to Professor King.FEBRUARY:
You think too much.STURGEON:
Entirely possible.FEBRUARY:
Anywho… why were you on top of a lighthouse submerged under water?STURGEON:
For… science?FEBRUARY:
Are you patronising me?STURGEON:
What? Me? Nooo… never.FEBRUARY:
I’ll keel-haul you.STURGEON:
I know you’re being sarcastic, but it still does seem overly familiar to threaten me with acts of maritime torture after only knowing me for one day.FEBRUARY:
One day and one night, I’ll have you know.STURGEON:
Or whatever you’ve approximated night to be, at least.FEBRUARY:
Humph– You’re dodging my question again.STURGEON:
Well, I am not lying to you. I am in the process of conducting research. For marine sciences.FEBRUARY:
For the institute of ocean graphs and what have you.STURGEON:
For the Institute of Oceanographic Study, yes.FEBRUARY:
Well what, my dear scientist–STURGEON:
–marine biologist and oceanographic researcher–FEBRUARY:
–gesundheit – is it that you are researching? exactly?STURGEON:
Well, I’m trying to construct an encyclopedia of sorts.FEBRUARY:
So… a fish catalogue?STURGEON:
Did you know there’s no such thing as a fish –FEBRUARY:
– please no, my dads loved that podcast and I cannot have another enthusiast on board.STURGEON:
Oh, you’ll keel-haul me?FEBRUARY:
Ha-ha, very funny.STURGEON:
Yes. A fish catalogue.[pause]
[sound of a seagull up above again]FEBRUARY:
Can I… help?STURGEON:
(sizing February up) Hmmm… Well. That depends. Can you take orders, Captain?FEBRUARY:
I can follow a heading when it’s relayed to me.
STURGEON:
Then we have an accord.[handshake]FEBRUARY:
[mostly to themselves] A heading.(with a hopeful little huff) A place to go.STURGEON:
Nehhh, not reallllyy–FEBRUARY:
So are you going to be researching giant squid–?[Recorder clicks off]
[FADE IN]
[♪ MUSIC: All At Sea Theme repeated]ANNOUNCER:
This episode of All At Sea is written by Noah Bell and performed by Noah Bell as the voice of February March and Butterscotch Bread as the voice of Sturgeon Fisher.
Original music for the show is composed by Butterscotch Bread.
Rowan Odom is our sound designer.
Louis Wolf is our producer.
El Carters is our transcriber.
And show art is designed by Rusty.
If you rate and review us on your favorite podcatcher, you’ll get one giant squid. Very nice 🙂
Please, find us on Tumblr and Bluesky at All At Sea Pod.
Thank you for listening.[FADE OUT]
[END]
All At SeaEpisode #18
“CAPTAIN’S LOG: 18”Written by Noah Bell
Sound Design by Rowan Odom
Music by Butterscotch Bread
Transcript by El Carters[FADE IN]
[♪ MUSIC: All At Sea Theme]
[Sounds of waves]ANNOUNCER:
Making Up Leeway presents - All At Sea
Captain’s Log - Eighteenth Entry[FADE OUT]
[Recorder clicks on]
[Continued: a storm on the sea, the ship creaking, the rain hitting the deck, the wind blowing rapidly - all muted]FEBRUARY:
(whispered) There’s something wrong with the Zenith. Ha… (nervous breath) There were footsteps outside my door. I-I don’t think Sturgeon is awake, I-I don’t– Shit shit shit shit…[Fabric rustle as Feb moves]
[A shakey breath]FEBRUARY (CONT’D):
I don’t know what to do. I just woke up and–[A groan of the ship echoes loudly]
[February holds their breath in fear]FEBRUARY (CONT’D):
I’ve no clue what is wrong with the Zenith. This has never happened before, and I won’t lie, I’m shitting bricks right now.[short pause]I was sleeping – because you know, I still get tired without the normative day-night cycle but that’s whatever – and then I… and then I wake up… because I heard Ika screaming my name.
And I mean… she was screaming my name.
(deeply distressed) It was like that night, i-it wa– it wasn’t a dream. I’ve had this dream before, and it wasn’t a dream, it wasn’t–[rapid breaths]I–
I’m going outside.[Fabric rustling and quiet footsteps as Feb moves to the doors of the cabin]
[Something large slams against door and deck outside]
[February breathes in with fear]IKA:
(echoey, from the outside) (In Brazilian Portuguese) [Calls out February's name, asking where they are]FEBRUARY:
(with a hitched breath) No–IKA:
(echoey, from the outside) (In Brazilian Portuguese) [Calls for them to come and help] [is cut off][grunts in surprise]
[Ika falls to the deck with a thud]
[Ika screams, the sound fading away]
[Terrified banging against the door]
[Ika keeps on screaming - it’s fading in and out]FEBRUARY:
(with a gasp and distressed breathing) No![quiet thud of feet and fabric rustle as February stumbles away and sinks to the ground]FEBRUARY (CONT’D):
No, no this isn’t real.
(crying) No. This isn’t real. Fuck… No… This isn't real, they can’t be here– (mumbling) they can’t be, no– (more mumbling and crying)[Distressed, rapid breaths as February tries to calm themselves down]
[Ika continues to call from the outside - the sequence from before repeats - as Feb tries to ignore it and calm themselves]FEBRUARY:
(voice shaking, as they attempt to recite) “Drowning is not so pitiful as the attempt to rise. Three times, ‘tis said, a sinking man comes up to face the skies, and then– (choking on their sobs) and then declines forever to that abh– (struggling to keep composure) and then declines forever to that abhorred abode, where hope and he part company –”
[their words turn to sobs][Ika calls out once more as February speaks]FEBRUARY:
(voice breaking)Oh, no, fuck, this isn’t happening! I’m dreaming, I’m dreaming, I’m dreaming.
[a few shaky deep breaths]
(tries again) “Drowning is not so pitiful as the attempt to rise. Three times, ‘tis said, a- a sinking man comes up to face the skies, and then… (their words fade out)[The sound of static, the ship’s loud groans and picking up wind cover Feb’s voice]
[Recording is cut off with a thud]
[FADE IN]
[♪ MUSIC: All At Sea Theme repeated]ANNOUNCER:
This episode of All At Sea is written by Noah Bell and performed by Noah Bell as the voice of February March and Tatiana Gefter as the voice of Ika Nascimento.
Original music for the show is composed by Butterscotch Bread.
Rowan Odom is our sound designer.
Louis Wolf is our producer.
El Carters is our transcriber.
And show art is designed by Rusty.
Rate and review us on your favorite podcatcher, For one normative day-night cycle.
Find us on Tumblr and Bluesky at All At Sea Pod.
Thank you for listening.[FADE OUT]
[END]
All At SeaEpisode #19
“CAPTAIN’S LOG: 19”weWritten by Noah Bell
Sound Design by Rowan Odom
Music by Butterscotch Bread
Transcript by El Carters[FADE IN]
[♪ MUSIC: All At Sea Theme]
[Sounds of waves]ANNOUNCER:
Making Up Leeway presents - All At Sea
Captain’s Log - Nineteenth Entry[FADE OUT]
[Recorder clicks on]
[Continued: muted sounds of a ship at sea on calm waters with a running engine]
[Sound of someone opening the door to the cabin and walking it]STURGEON:
February?[Fabric rustle as Sturgeon prods Feb with their shoe]STURGEON:
February? Feb.[pause]Please do not be dead. You would be complicating my life horrifically.[Sturgeon opens the doors to the cabin again, letting in some air]FEBRUARY:
(groggily) Go away.STURGEON:
Did you fall asleep on the ground?FEBRUARY:
No, I just happened to be lying here in a state of semi-unconciousness on a place that isn’t the ground before you rudely barged into my…
(breath)
…sacred area.STURGEON:
I have never barged into somewhere in my life, I will have you know.[Long pause]FEBRUARY:
Did– Um–
Did you hear it?STURGEON:
(tentatively) Yes, yes I – I believe I did.**FEBRUARY:
Do you know what it was?STURGEON:
(scoff-laugh) Why do you think I would know what “It” was?FEBRUARY:
(pointedly) Because I found you on a lighthouse submerged in water and you’ve been dodging all my questions.STURGEON:
Are we seriously going to have this conversation with you lying on the floor and me looming over you?FEBRUARY:
Yes.STURGEON:
No.FEBRUARY:
What?STURGEON:
Do you not understand my (mocking February) received pronunciation? (normal voice) No. Sit up, or get up, but I won’t be talking to you like this.FEBRUARY:
Hey listen here, okay – last night was terrifying to me!
You’re telling me I just have to be okay with what I saw? With what I heard? What the fuck was that?! Nothing like that has ever–[irritated huff]STURGEON:
Hm? What’s that?FEBRUARY:
Nothing.STURGEON:
(long-suffering sigh)
(pause)
So you want to know what happened?FEBRUARY:
Yes!STURGEON:
(exasperated) You really don’t know?! You really, truly, honestly don’t know what has happened to the world?! How is that even possible?!FEBRUARY:
I… I was asleep?[pause]STURGEON:
You are unbelievable!FEBRUARY:
Better believe it, baby.STURGEON:
Get off the ground, you lump.FEBRUARY:
No, thanks.STURGEON:
(a tired sigh)
What exactly did you see last night, hm?FEBRUARY:
Uh, I– I woke up–STURGEON:
(cutting in, mockingly) Wooooow, revolutio–FEBRUARY:
(not letting Sturgeon finish) –to the sound of–
(trying again) To the sound of someone screaming my name. I-It’s a nightmare, I-I’ve had it before. Someone is screaming my name, calling for help. I wake up, everything is fine.
But this time it was different.[pause]STURGEON:
(curious) Different… how?FEBRUARY:
U-Wel- It was real. The storm. It wasn’t a nightmare, I tried to wake up but I couldn’t.
I– I heard her voice, felt the way the door reverberated beneath my touch, It– It was all real and then on the deck–(pause)Yeah, no, um– Yeah, I n– I– I couldn’t see anything on deck, it was too dark.STURGEON:
Interesting.FEBRUARY:
Excuse me?!STURGEON:
I did not see what you saw last night.
Oh, I-I mean, the storm – yes – that I did see, but I… did not hear… what you heard.FEBRUARY:
(confused) Wh–What did you hear?STURGEON:
(dismissive) Inconsequential!(short pause)I need to go and think on this for a while, thank you for the data.FEBRUARY:
I’m sorry… the what?STURGEON:
You’ve neatly upset one of my hypotheses.
I’ll have to go and review my notes. When you’ve decided to… uncurl yourself from the shrimp-like position you inhabit, and adequately prepared yourself, then perhaps we can talk about… uh– what happened.[pause]FEBRUARY:
(very confused) What–??STURGEON:
(cutting them off) Oh, your recorder is running. Might wanna turn it off.FEBRUARY:
Hm… Right.[Recorder click off]
[FADE IN]
[♪ MUSIC: All At Sea Theme repeated]ANNOUNCER:
This episode of All At Sea is written by Noah Bell and performed by Noah Bell as the voice of February March and Butterscotch Bread as the voice of Sturgeon Fisher.
Original music for the show is composed by Butterscotch Bread.
Rowan Odom is our sound designer.
Louis Wolf is our producer.
El Carters is our transcriber.
And show art is designed by Rusty.
One rate and review equals one extra day of rations for the Zenith crew.
Please, find us on Tumblr and Bluesky at All At Sea Pod.
Thank you for listening.[FADE OUT]
[END]
All At SeaEpisode #20
“CAPTAIN’S LOG: 20”Written by Noah Bell
Sound Design by Rowan Odom
Music by Butterscotch Bread
Transcript by El Carters[FADE IN]
[Sounds of waves]
[♪ MUSIC: All At Sea Theme - it goes wrong: slowing down, breaking up into static]
[Doors open]
[Answering machine sound]
[♪ MUSIC: gentle retro piano music]
[Continued: sounds of a typewriter]GIDEON:
Alright.
This is Gideon Meander - field reporter for The Tryin’ Times. I’ve just finished up my investigation, fourteen interviews with key witnesses.
My report will be completed by January 15th and I will be releasin’ it to the public. Aaand there’s nothing you can really do to stop me.
I doubt anyone will even believe me…[3 beeps as the message ends]TRAILER ANNOUNCER:
The Corner of Pleasure and West River is a new series from The Heart is A Dungeon that will begin this January. It follows fourteen individuals in the city of Pangea, experiencing a world-changing event.
Tune in, spread the word, don’t let them convince the world it isn’t real. We all know something happened, there, at the Corner of Pleasure and West River. We just need to find out what.[Music fades out]
[Static crackling]
[Doors being closed and locked]
[FADE IN]
[♪ MUSIC: All At Sea Theme transitioning from wrong & distorted to regular]
[Sounds of waves]ANNOUNCER:
Making Up Leeway presents - All At Sea
Captain’s Log - Twentieth Entry[FADE OUT]
[Recorder clicks on]
[Continued: sounds of a ship at sea]
[As February speaks we can hear fabric rustling of their movement]FEBRUARY:
Captain’s log. Today is the day of the new dawn of an old life for me and I am feeling exactly the same as all the days that have come before. Absolutely and utterly smashing! Of course. Nobody has ever coped better with this specific set of circumstances than me.STURGEON:
(off in the distance) Debatable.FEBRUARY:
Delightful commentary from our fellow ship-mate. They might be named for a fish, but they sure swim ill in these waters.
[Fabric rustle as February gestures to Sturgeon]STURGEON:
(closer) Pardon me?FEBRUARY:
Well, this captain’s log is being completely and utterly derailed by the aforementioned ship-mate who claims to love procedure and protocol but can’t seem to stick to the ways of my—[Feb hits their chest with an open palm]
[Footsteps as Sturgeon interrupts]STURGEON:
(annoyed) February![Recorder clicks off]
[Moment of pause]
[Recorder clicks back on]
[Continued: dulled sounds of the running engine, muted sounds of a ship at sea]FEBRUARY:
Okay–[A gentle thud as February puts the recorder on the table]
[Fabric rustle as Feb moves their arm across the table]STURGEON:
Why are you recording this?FEBRUARY:
Well, we gotta, don't we?[Sound of hands rubbing together]STURGEON:
This is a personal–[a finger tap on the table]–conversation.FEBRUARY:
Well, think of it as a memoir, then.STURGEON:
It's not a memoir.[Leather armchair creek]We're stuck in the aftermath of a flood that has covered the entire planet!FEBRUARY:
Yeah, and the last guy who toughed that one out wrote everything down and it got turned into a book! Down to the really personal bits, like… being drunk and naked in a cave.STURGEON:
Uh– February!FEBRUARY:
Come on. This is important. And– And maybe… Maybe you want a record of this in the future. Isn't that what you sciencey types like?STURGEON:
(huffy) Stop calling me a scientist!FEBRUARY:
Ah-ha-haa, but I didn’t! I called you a sciency type.[pause]
[Feb plops their hands down on their lap]Oh come on, Sturgeon. Don’t look at me like that, I– I didn’t record any of what you told me, uh-um…
And I have to.STURGEON:
(suspiciously) You… have to?FEBRUARY:
Well, yes. For the log.STURGEON:
The… captain’s… log?FEBRUARY:
Why are you saying it like that?STURGEON:
No reason.[Fabric rustle, leather armchair creek]FEBRUARY:
Riiight. Anyway, moving on.[short pause]Tell me what happened.
F– For the record. For the log.STURGEON:
Well, like I have already told you… there was an ecological disaster of unprecedented magnitude that caused the end of the modern world as we have come to know it.FEBRUARY:
AKA, when people said 12 years ago that the damage done by the humans to the planet would be irreversible in 12 years’ time, they were right. They just didn’t realise it meant Noah’s Flood part two oceanic boogaloo.[Chair creek]STURGEON:
…Riiiight.FEBRUARY:
Am I wrong?STURGEON:
Technically, no.FEBRUARY:
Then my explanation wasn’t just good, it was good enough and that’s all that matters.STURGEON:
I will be ignoring that and moving on.(teacup hits the table)Did you put sugar in my coffee?FEBRUARY:
Yes, obviously.(short pause)Oh, wait, no, maybe I didn’t. Hold on–[Rustling and chair creek as Feb gets up]
[Footsteps as they go to the kitchen]
[Cabinet opens]
[Cabinet closes]
[Footsteps back]
[A gentle thud as Feb puts the sugar tin on the table]STURGEON:
Thanks[Rustle and chair creek as Sturgeon moves closer to the table]
[As Feb speaks, we hear Sturgeon open the sugar pot and then clinking as ey stirr the coffee in ey cup]
FEBRUARY:
No problem. Uh. Anyway.A-Um–
Before we move on…
(they hesitate) The people… How many of them are left?STURGEON:
What do you mean?[Fabric rustle, ringing of porcelain and metal together]FEBRUARY:
Well, are we, like, the only ones left or are there communities out there, I- gfhg–
I– I don’t know if you can tell, but running into land is not something I do very frequently out here.STURGEON:
Well, you would not be running into any land because it has all been covered–FEBRUARY:
–in water. Yes, yes…[long pause]
[a gentle clink of a spoon on the mug and then the spoon is put down on the table]
[gentle thud as the cup is raised up and then after a moment another thud as it is put back down]STURGEON:
I don’t know.FEBRUARY:
You don’t know?
STURGEON:
I’m sorry.[Pause]
[Fabric rustle as Feb moves yet again]FEBRUARY:
Well, surely not everyone.. Right?STURGEON:
N–No, no. Not… everyone, but I… cannot provide you with an exact… number.FEBRUARY:
(softly) Dad… (short sigh) Avalon.STURGEON:
Sorry?FEBRUARY:
Nothing, nothing–[chair creek]Sorry, irrelevant… thoughts, um–
Continue with the story.STURGEON:
(taking a breath) Yes, right. So, the ecological disaster not only caused unprecedented meteorological effects all over the globe–[A gentle thud as Feb raises their cup up from the table]STURGEON (CONT’D):
–but also had observable effects on many other aspects of life. Though, whether this was as a consequence of the heavy rains and the floods hasn’t been proven — mostly since the equipment with which we could test the effects of the ecological disaster… was destroyed.[short pause]FEBRUARY:
So the stuff with my comms and nav systems was sort of par for the course, you mean.STURGEON:
Exactly. Which is, partly, why I was out at sea when you found me. I was trying to conduct a study with the limited equipment available to me.FEBRUARY:
And fish encyclopaedia.STURGEON:
And… fish encyclopaedia.FEBRUARY:
Which you’ll tell me about when….?STURGEON:
Dh–When it becomes relevant.FEBRUARY:
I thought this was supposed to be a partnership.STURGEON:
A–And it will be!
Eventually.[Sturgeon picks up their cup of coffee]FEBRUARY:
Ough, rough crowd.STURGEON:
Will that be all? For your… “log”?FEBRUARY:
I suppose so! If you’re not going to be forthcoming with anything else?STURGEON:
No.[Pause]
[Sturgeon sips his coffee]
[The awkwardness of the pause stretches]FEBRUARY:
Well then.
End log.[Fabric rustles and chair squeaks as Feb reaches over the table]
[Recorder clicks off]
[The recorder clicks back on]
[Continued: Muted sounds of the ship at sea and a running engine]FEBRUARY:
Note to self: you will find them– You will find them, and… and it will be okay.[Pause]
[Recorder clicks off]
[FADE IN]
[♪ MUSIC: All At Sea Theme repeated]ANNOUNCER:
This episode of All At Sea is written by Noah Bell and performed by Noah Bell as the voice of February March and Butterscotch Bread as the voice of Sturgeon Fisher.
Original music for the show is composed by Butterscotch Bread.
Rowan Odom is our sound designer.
Louis Wolf is our producer.
El Carters is our transcriber.
And show art is designed by Rusty.
Rate and review us on your favorite podcatcher for a page from Sturgeon’s O’fish O’fish encyclopedia. 😂
Please, find us on Tumblr and Bluesky at All At Sea Pod.
Thank you for listening.
YIPPIE! 😀[FADE OUT]
[END]