‘What is there in Claude that attracts her way too much?’

‘Well, that’s the most interesting thing to know… This guy Claude has a gifted talent of poetry writing. And my friend Jamie is very much interested in poetry. She likes his poems very much as he shows her his work.’

‘I see… and what sort of poetry does he writes?’

‘I have his poem, wait I will show it to you,’ she says taking out a piece of paper from her purse. ‘I’ll read it out to you… it’s entitled, ‘Living in Hell!’

I have one complicated wish,

That is to kill people who are selfish,

And those are cruel and ruthless,

I have this feeling to confess,

That I feel like Living in Hell.

I can’t judge on a person’s first look,

That how much he is mean or crook,

I don’t trust anyone these days,

Because to cheat on me, people have many ways,

This is life of people Living in Hell.

I ask questions and I hear lies,

But still at times I realise,

I’m no different than others,

My own harsh nature changes like seasonal weathers,

As I’m one of those who are Living in Hell.

The alternative I see is of becoming a devil,

With a spirit that is dangerously evil,

However, when my love suffers pain with my hands, herself,

I feel relieved myself,

Because along with me, she’s also Living in Hell.

‘Interesting,’ Balaach says, ‘but there is something about this guy. I think he hates the world too much. He believes that people are cruel and mean to him.’

‘Yes, you do have a point here. Maybe that’s why he makes Jamie suffer to feel relaxed himself.’

They keep on talking about Claude, visualising him as a devil sort of furious looking guy.

Komal’s Secret Plan

Next afternoon, Komal meets Jamie at her home and gets shocked to see her. Her face’ left side was swelled and her lips also had many wounds. Her clothes were also torn from sides. She was very much like a beaten up slave and a tortured prisoner. Komal asks to him:

‘What happened with you Jamie? Did Claude try to kill you?’

‘I’m okay Komal, this is our love. I don’t care what he does. If he really wants this, then I’ll have to bear this.’

‘Jamie you’ve lost your beauty because of that animal. You don’t love him, I’m sure about that. Why you’re tolerating all of this?’

‘Okay I’ll leave him then,’ Jamie finally says, ‘only if you find me a new boyfriend. I am completely lonely without a boyfriend.’

‘Okay I’ll see, but can you show me Claude’s photograph?’

‘You never showed me Balaach’s picture. So, why should I show you Claude’s picture?’

‘As you wish, but if you could give me some details about Claude, then maybe we could bring a change in him.’

‘I don’t want any change in him now,’ Jamie says looking aside. ‘I don’t love him anymore, but I know that he loves me. Last night, he wrote a romantic poem for me.’

‘Can I see it?’

Jamie gives a paper to her where the poem, ‘I hope She understands Me’ was written. Komal reads its first stanza:

I knew nothing but to hate,

But when I met this new mate,

I discovered a new emotion,

Making me realize what is affection,

Everything now gets better,

Whenever I’m with her,

I hope she understands me.

She copies down the entire poem of these two stanzas on her own note book. While she’s writing, she tells Jamie:

‘I have a secret plan. I am about to surprise Balaach.’

‘How?’

‘On 8th May, it’s his birthday. I’ll go to his house during midnight after twelve o’clock without letting him know, and will surprise him with a gift.’

‘Oh… he’ll like it for sure.’

Moments later, Komal captures Jamie’s face’ picture with her cell phone and leaves her home.

That evening, Balaach meets her outside his store. Komal again talks about Jamie and Claude. She shows her the picture to him from her cell phone. Balaach gets stunned to see her friend and says in sympathy:

‘What’s going on between her and Claude?’

‘She just wants a boyfriend. That’s why she’s with him. And one more thing, I’ve discovered that he is also romantic at times. He also wrote this poem for her.’

Komal reads out the second stanza loudly:

No matter how harsh I can be,

Being with her makes me see,

Without her my life was colorless,

Where I used to see nothing but distress,

My love is invisible,

Because about romance I’m not capable,

I hope she understands me.

After finishing this, he says:

‘What do we make of it? Either he’s really cruel and devilish. Or he’s just extracting his life’s frustration by beating her, but in fact, he’s soft from his heart…’

He and Komal further more discuss the matter on Claude. And then, Balaach decides to save Jamie by finding Claude someday.

Not What I Expected

A month later, it was a night before Balaach’s birthday. He was just lying on the bed of his room. He was waiting for twelve o’clock as he knew Komal would be the first one to wish him happy birthday. As it gets twelve o’clock, he gets no call from her until one hour. Then, he fell asleep as he got tired of waiting for her to wish him.

Next morning, he wakes up and sits over his bed. As he rubs his eyes, he sees blood stains on his shirt. He gets a little frightened and looks around touching his own face and arms to make sure he wasn’t injured.

He stands up immediately to see what had happened but as he finds no clue, then he ignores these blood stains and prepares to leave for work.

Two hours later, Balaach was at his store waiting for Komal to come. He was a little disappointed as she had forgotten his birthday. He waits quite long for her to return but till one o’clock he gets no response from her. He makes a phone call to her but she doesn’t attend his phone call.

Later during that afternoon, he leaves his store and drives straight towards Komal’s house. Some of the blood stains were also in his car’s trunk. The moment he reaches her home, he sees her standing outside, weeping. He gets worried and runs toward her. He asks her:

‘What happened Komal?’

‘I don’t want to talk to you,’ she cries turning away.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You were always unfaithful and worthless. I loved you, but I was wrong, I should have known you were always lying to me.’

‘Oh, just shut up!’ he yells getting confused and angry. ‘What makes you think I was lying?’

‘Don’t you date try to fool me. You were with Jamie last night; I saw you both.’

He stops and remembers something about the blood stains. She angrily goes back inside her house and tells him that they were breaking up now.

Confused and sad Balaach leaves her house to see what was going on. This was not what he expected to happen. When he goes towards his car, he sees blood stains over its trunk. Therefore, he unlocks it and checks out what was inside. He gets shocked and frightened to see a dead body of an unknown man in his car’s trunk. He takes out all the documents from his car, that were stating his identity. And then he runs away from the place leaving behind his car. Unfortunately, Shams secretly witnesses the entire scene and decides to do something against Balaach.

As Balaach reaches his home, he gets troubled thinking what was happening with him. He sees a car coming towards him with a woman driving it. He slowly recognises her that it was Jamie. The first thing that comes in his mind was that the dead body might be of Claude.

Jamie steps out and calls him:

‘Mr Balaach, come along we need to go somewhere.’

‘I can’t,’ he says getting scared.

‘I have to tell you about something last night…’

He goes nearer and sits inside his car with her.

While she was driving, he then asks:

‘Where are we going?’

‘To the hospital…’

‘Why? I’m confused that what’s going on? You’re Claude’s girlfriend, right?’

‘Listen to me,’ she says, ‘I know that you and Komal just broke up. Why? Because she saw both of us together at your home last night…’

‘Both of us together? I’m seeing you for the first time…’

‘You are actually mentally ill Mr Balaach. And you don’t know about your psychological disorder… you and Claude are the same person.’

Diagnosis

As Jamie takes Balaach to the hospital, they meet a psychiatrist who diagnoses after a few meetings with Balaach, that he had a psychological disease called ‘Dissociate Identity Disorder’ which is also known as ‘Multiple Personality Disorder’.

According to this disease, a person has at least two distinct identities or separate personalities. This was with Balaach who had two separate identities which were controlling his behaviour. One was Aziz Balaach himself and the other one was just Claude. Whenever, Balaach used to go and sleep. His altar Claude used to get active and eventually control his mind and body.

Balaach was suffering from this disease due to a child hood trauma. When he was younger, he was child molested by some adult boys who sort of persecuted him verbally and physically. This incident had a severe impact on his mind. So that day, when he saw some boys and the cops outside his store, he actually saw a young boy Claude who was fifteen, being a victim of child molest like himself and later, he took the video clip of that child molest incident in his cell phone from the cops. As he went home, he viewed the scene of that video more than ten times. He had so much sympathy for that little boy Claude that he began to compare his own situation with him. So, his mind formed another self-identified as Claude.

After that day, Balaach was living separately as he had shifted to another apartment. The lonely and distressed Balaach became unaware of his separate identity. So Claude was active only when Balaach was inactive during sleep from twelve o’clock to eight o’clock. The altar Claude had all the characteristics that were in Balaach’s subconscious mind such as poetry writing, devilish intentions and cruelty for people. Claude was a negative sort of hardcore person because he wanted vengeance from those who tortured Balaach.

His altar Claude had a relationship with Jamie, who was unaware of his disease at that time. She used to come to his place only when he allowed and of course he allowed only when Claude was active. Balaach used to accuse himself of sleep walking because whenever he slept somewhere, he used to wake up at another corner of his house, because of Claude.

Now, when Doctor Farhad had completely diagnosed his disorder, he told Jamie everything about his diagnosis and later, Balaach was also aware of this. So his treatment was going on. He was sent back to his apartment and not allowed to leave until told to do so. He fitted cameras on every room, so that next day he could watch Claude in a video. This was a part of treatment and to make sure Claude wasn’t committing any more crimes like he murdered someone before.

Jamie tells Something when it’s Late 2014 (present day)

Four months later, Balaach wakes up and finds himself at another room. He stands up from the sofa on which he had been lying. He finds another poem written on a piece of paper with different hand writing. He knows that his altar Claude was behind everything. Therefore, he decides to view the video of last night.

An hour later, after he had seen the video, his doorbell rings. This time for was quite unusual for any guests, but still he goes to check out. As he opens the door, it was Jamie. He gets very glad to see her,

‘Oh Jamie, how are you? It’s really good to see you.’

‘I know, but I have some terrible reports for you.’

While they were sitting inside his home, Jamie tells him:

‘I have to tell you this. I am pregnant with your child…’

‘I was expecting that earlier,’ he says getting a little shocked, ‘but now it’s late…!’

‘It’s been four months, and I haven’t told you since…’

‘You mean that this happened on my birthday’s midnight?’

‘Yes!’

to be continued...