A match is lit and set to a candle. Light fills a small maroon space, lined with the outlines of ribs. Holding the candle is a young bespectacled man with a cherubic face and a look of horror. Sitting in another corner of the space is an older man, gaunt and grizzled. He speaks first:

Tom: Throw those matches over here, boy.

The young man complies, and Tom uses them to light a cigarette.

Colin: Where are we? One minute I was on the boat… and then that storm came out of nowhere… a wave hit me and… I can’t remember much after that.

Tom: Isn’t it obvious? Take a look around you.

Colin: Oh god. We’re not… inside a…

Tom smiles grimly.

Tom: Mhmm. Inside the belly of a whale. Been here for a week by my count… but now at least I got a light. Makes it all worthwhile.

Colin: Inside a whale. Wow. Its ribs our ceiling beams, its guts our carpeting.

Tom: I guess we have some time to kill.

Colin: I can’t believe this… I wrote a song about this once.

Tom: Heh. You and everyone else, kid.

Colin: No, really! I’m not joking… it’s called The Mariner’s Revenge Song. It’s this nine-minute long epic song with accordions and tambourine. About this young sailor and his mother’s death, and his desire for revenge on the scoundrel who drove her to insanity. A long narrative, punctuated by ghostly interludes and bitter hatred.

Tom: Sounds interesting. Possibly violent. I like that.

Colin: At the onset of the song, the sailor and his nemesis are in the belly of a whale… knives to each other’s throats, swallowed in the middle of a nautical battle, and now here I am, just like them.

Tom: Can’t have a good song without a sailor in it.

Colin: I thought that too, once. My work started to get populated by them, though. I had at least one sea shanty per album. I almost felt obligated to include them. As much as I like writing them, though, I don’t know if I want to go through my career as that guy who always puts sailors in his songs…

Tom laughs gruffly and without emotion.

Tom: You’re talking to the wrong guy about that, kid. When I say you can’t have a good song without a sailor, I mean it. No sailor, no song. End of story. If anything, I’d say throw a few more sailors into your work. You never know where it could take your career.

Colin: Well, there’s probably a limit. On my last album I tried to get away from the fanciful histories that made people notice my band. I think it worked pretty well. Instead of writing songs about dockhands, pirates, and pretty Irish girls, I branched out into things like… male prostitutes and the Cold War. I’d like to think it was received well. But it doesn’t matter anymore. I’ll never see an audience again, not in this whale.

Tom: Buck up, it could be worse. I could run out of smokes.

Tom grinds a lit cigarette into the whale’s stomach lining. The beast lets out a roar of excruciating pain, and water rushes into the enclosure, rising to Colin’s ankles. Tom moves to higher ground and lights up another cigarette.

Tom: You know, I wrote a song called Starving in the Belly of a Whale once… but then it really didn’t take place inside of a whale. It was more of a metaphor. For the hopelessness of life, all that. Man’s a fiddle that life plays on, you know? The song’s dark, real dark. Dissonant bells, bass clarinets, upright bass. Nice and creepy. Real bleak. That’s how a lot of people see me, though. Unkempt, kind of scary. I don’t mind so much. They leave me alone. It’s a sad truth, though. Eventually, one way or another, everything goes to hell in the end. But as long as you got sailors and street names, you should be okay. Trust me on this one kid. I’ve been around the music business since you weren’t born, and I’m still here. I’m still digging my claws into the meat of the monster. Hell, I used the maritime ode as a springboard to my success as well, and I don’t regret a moment of it.

Colin: Do you think I could keep writing songs about the sea, then? I don’t want to be pigeonholed; there are still so many things I’d like to write about.

Tom: Heh, sure. Go for it.

Colin sighs and sits.

Colin: Not that it matters…

Tom: No, probably doesn’t. We’re going to be here for a while, kid.

Colin: Starving in the belly of the whale.

Tom: Starving? Not if I have anything to say about it.

This comment goes unheard by Colin, who continues to mope. Tom pulls out a knife and fork, approaching Colin quietly. Colin throws up his hands in frustration.

Colin: Oh, who gives a good goddamn? We’re stuck here forever.

Tom: Don’t think too much about it, kid. You’ll never get out alive.

The candle goes out.