The Story

On a cross country drive in the fall of 2008, a close friend of the band told an enthralling story. In the interest of keeping her identity private, we'll call her Kim. The tale she told was a one of love, betrayal, mystery, and espionage. She started the story with a sentence I can still clearly hear falling from her lips, "I guess I've kept this secret long enough". That simple sentence, loaded with intrigue, was the intro into the story that would become the basis of "Anaxiphilia".

After moving from Seattle to Chicago in 2003, Kim found a diary and a letter tucked in a side panel of her moving truck. The diary belonged to a young man, we'll call Eric, and the letter was written to him by a woman we'll call Nina. There was little about the diary that was very interesting aside from one week towards the end of January, 1982. Most of the diary detailed Eric's sexual exploits, failed past relationships, sibling rivalry, and some bad poetry, but on Thursday, January 21st the diary shifted focus to a beautiful young woman that Eric spotted in a nightclub. As that week in 1982 progressed, Eric's affection for this woman grew strong.

Our friend Kim was uncharacteristically nervous as she told the story and revealed every detail of that week in the diary from memory. We silently hung on every word as she reached the end of Wednesday the 27th that culminated in the young lady in the story being gunned down on a moonlit street by unidentified assailants. We were all skeptical yet completely captivated. I was impressed by her uncanny recollection of details, but when she finished and I asked about the contents of the letter, she simply responded, "I don't remember." She went on to inform us that to be on the safe side, she brought the diary and the letter to the police shortly after it was found.

After about a month of investigation, the police returned the items to Kim and informed her that they were most likely a work of fiction. Although there were a number of missing persons reports filed nationally around the same time period, there was no hard evidence that pointed towards one of them being Nina. As Kim finished the story, we voiced our agreement with the police through quips about romanticized cold war espionage and how it sounded like Eric may have watched a few too many spy movies. None of us who were listening to this story were terribly surprised that it all turned out to be a yarn.

After about a quarter mile of silence on the 845 mile trip, Kim looked up from quickly checking her phone and spoke barely loud enough to hear over the hum of the van's tires, "That's not the end of the story." Kim went on to explain that 2 days after the diary and letter were returned to her, she was the victim of a burglary. Her apartment was not trashed. There was no forcible entry. Not a single throw pillow was out of place. Only two things were missing; the letter and the diary pages that detailed the events of January 21 - 27, 1982. Those very curious 7 days became the inspiration for Anaxiphilia.