Work Text:
The broad daylight outside almost blinded him momentarily. Professor Neil Perry had just come out of the pitch-black darkness of the departmental auditorium of the university where he taught. He had just finished the screening of 'Split', the 2016 American horror film, for his psychology major students.
"So, guys, how was it?" Neil asked nobody in particular from among the handful of students who had tagged along with him into the corridor outside the auditorium.
"What are your thoughts on Multiple Personality Disorder? Does any of you suffer from MPD? Have any of you guys ever experienced something like this, like the presence of "another self" inside you?" Neil tried to make light of this loaded, serious question by making his voice sound as cheerful as possible and flashing and stretching his signature smile as wide as possible.
He had spent the whole of the previous week dwelling at great length on MPD, or DID - Dissociative Identity Disorder, as it was alternatively called, in the classroom, and he had screened the noted film-maker M. Night Shyamalan's psycho thriller 'Split' as an illustrative case study.
"There you go again, Mr Perry," came the clipped-accent voice from somewhere behind Neil. He intuitively knew even before turning his head around to see that the soft yet strong voice belonged to Jacob Blivens, the quietest and brightest boy in the class, who was acutely perceptive about everything happening around him. "Why do you always keep quizzing us on stuff like this, forcing us to bare our minds before you? Why don't you ever open up about yourself? Why don't you answer for yourself the incisive and deeply penetrating questions that you pose to us?" Jacob asked in all sincerity, his face exhibiting a mixture of emotions. He felt brave and scared at the same time. Neil Perry was, after all, his professor. "I hope I haven't overstepped my limits, Professor Perry. I'm sorry if I have. It's just that I also feel curious about you as you feel about us. You really don't have to answer my question if you don't want to."
Neil's long-fingered left hand automatically went up as a reflex action to his 53-year-old forehead to run through his thinning, greying hair, a very much visible sign of his nervousness, as he asked Jacob, looking him in the eye, "What's your question?"
"The one that you asked us just a minute back. Do you suffer from MPD? Have you ever experienced something like this, like the presence of 'another self' inside you?" said Jacob, feeling emboldened again.
"Yes. Always," said Neil, his nervousness of a minute back vanishing into thin air and a slight smile beginning to form on his lips again. "I am always aware of the presence of two selves inside me, living in a state of peaceful co-existence. You want to know who they are?"
Jacob nodded his head submissively.
"One of them is a young boy, just about 17 years old, wishfully waiting to reach a future that he dreams about. The other one is a much-matured middle-aged man wistfully waiting to recover a past that he dreams about. And you know what the funny thing is? The young boy never reached that future, and the middle-aged man never had that past. Both of them have just been dreaming. Bye, Jacob. See you later."
Neil turned on his heels and walked away, leaving a visibly stunned Jacob Blivens behind.