Annabel McAlistair:
As the 3rd song opens, we are in Annabel’s private lab, where she is about to attempt to animate a mannequin construct. Who is she?
Annabel definitely has the neurotic (mad) scientist thing going on. But this is of course matched by an intense loneliness and feeling of helplessness in social interactions.
Annabel was raised by parents obsessed with an Ayn Randish philosophy that prized achievement over everything, most notably the development of social relationships. Annabel was discouraged from wasting her time on social bonding, particularly on rabble who had not yet made a name for themselves. The idea was that she could develop social bonds later in life, after she had risen to the top of her field in science, and thus would have access to the other great achievers of the world, whose company were the only ones worth having to begin with.
While this has certainly produced in Annabel deep obsession with her work, it has also produced deep and profound loneliness. She has made up for her lack of well developed relationships through a rich inner fantasy life. She has carried on romantic relationships for months on end through sheer mental fantasy. She is not disassociative, and is not out of touch with reality. She knows she is fantasizing. It is her only way of fulfilling herself emotionally.
In addition, her feelings of self worth are inherently tied to her level of achievement. Until she achieves some sort of notability, she remains worthless. While she does not necessarily agree with her parents’ philosophies, she is a product of them nonetheless.
Annabel was awkward and exceedingly bookish throughout college, with few friends and no romantic relationships of any depth, aside from a few drunken hook ups which did little to alleviate her uncomfortability with social bonding. She was deeply in love from a distance with a boy named Jasper who was scarcely aware of her, and after 2 years of this, through pure chance, she did spend an exquisite evening with him that ended in a wonderfully romantic kiss. He was already betrothed to another in an arranged marriage by his parents and quite upset about this and some of his and Annabel’s conversation had revolved around his frustration with this.
It was almost immediately afterwards that Annabel was expelled from school. She had been in conflict with several of her professors over the possibilty of some theory, and had set about to prove them wrong. However, in order to do this she had stolen corpses. Caught, she was expelled.
Her parents were perfectly pleased, believing that any individual of any great potential must inevitably conflict and be shunned by a mediocre world. This, they were confident, would drive the Acheiver ever onward, to greater glory.
They died within a year of Annabel’s expulsion.
They left her a sizable property where her lab is located and a tidy sum of money. Annabel’s never ending experiments are all she has and she has worked alone down in her lab for several years since all this has occurred. It is hard to achieve success or recognition through such a hermetic lifestyle however, and since her basic sense of self worth relies on this eventually happening, she is troubled instead of ultimately content.
She does go outside the house every Sunday in order to experience the world as best she can, and much of what she sees becomes fodder for her fantasy life.
She has kept tabs on Jasper, is convinced that his marriage was a nightmare (and in actuality, it was very bad) and when she reads of his death is shocked and heartbroken, as he has always been her one true love and has played a key role as her imaginary husband in many of her daydreams.
She is a genuis, though. Really, truly a genuis, and she has been experimenting with life and death. She believes she can bring him back from the dead and put him in the body of a mannequin construct. She steals one of his possesions (for the DNA ultimately). She sees this as the possibility of a whole new life for him and her. He can live again, away from his horrible marriage and family and with someone who will love and adore him and who can keep her company.
The song is sung by Annabel in her lab as she is nearing the moment when she will attempt the final step of the process. She is in a manic state, largely due to the normal hyper state she enters when she is immersed in her work, and additionally due to her emotions.
