The Darkness Outside Us

by Eliot Schrefer

You love Kodiak. This is the hidden miracle of all this: you might be loving each other deeper than any humans have ever loved, have ever needed to love, have ever had the occasion to love. Well, maybe Adam and Eve did, but you and I both know we don’t think they ever existed.

Kodiak will become your second self. But at first, you will see him and think of a man who needs love and is crying out for you to give it. In you he sees someone who will possess and manipulate him.

I stand alongside him, arm draped across his shoulders. He’s a stranger, a lover, and my life partner. We have lived and died lifetimes together, and it makes me shiver every time that odd truth comes over me.