One Last Perfect Day

Simon:

Once inside the house, Dora produces the knife from her bag and calmly takes the life of Vernon. Once she has finished, she sits down on a nearby chair, calls the police and waits.

Now I am going to state for the record that the notion of killing someone for whatever reason is something I am utterly against. This is a story however and like the song Bedlam Days the act is there to serve the narrative. That doesn’t mean I didn’t ponder long and hard over the notion of including such an action. When I was younger, the concept of killing was something abstract and removed from my everyday existence. Death only occurred in films and video games.

Maybe it’s because I am older now but just being alive is something that gets more important and valuable with every day that passes but it got me to thinking about how much the quality of life is a huge factor in the will to survive. For the character of Dora, she had no quality of life. She felt isolated both mentally and socially and the only was she could reach beyond it was to do something frankly, insane.

It also gave me a chance to mention more overtly a question that recurs throughout the album; where does the reality in what people do, really lie?

I’ve encountered many people in my time who simply aren’t fully there in the sense of living in the world. They are dreamers and fantasists who choose to reject the real and live in a construction. Now I fully admit that we all do it from time to time when reading a book, going on holiday or even being part of a band (heh) but the majority of us innately know how to turn it on and off as the need requires.

For this story however, I wanted there to be two parallel ways to see Dora. In one the dream world is real, something fantastic, which exists at the edges of what, we know. In the other, Dora is simply driven insane by her overwhelming desire to see an end to her troubles and the fantasy takes over for good.

I didn’t want to ram either point of view down people’s throats but instead allow people to make up their own minds. I know which one I believe it is but I’m pretty damn sure it’s different to that held by the project’s lyricist Robert Ramsay for example.

Ah well.

Robert:

It can be two things.