Judgement Day

by Michael Spears

  I was in that hospital for two months, and over time the boredom and isolation got the better of me. What started as “the thought police,” became my prayers. Once I rid myself of all of my angry thoughts towards God, I began talking to Him in my mind. I was never big on prayer, being raised an atheist, but since He knows all of my thoughts, all that was necessary was for me to think messages or conversations and send them to Him. What started out as me imagining His replies in thought form became something where I didn’t have to consciously imagine what He would say back, it would just appear in my mind. I wasn’t well.

  They finally let me out when I begged them. I broke down in a group meeting and told them I’ve got no one to talk to except the voices in my head, I told them that I can’t take it anymore and I need to get out of there. I never gave up on my beliefs while I was in the hospital, but perhaps this was the first time I began to doubt my sanity. They let me out not long after that.

  Once I got out of the hospital though, life was no picnic. I was still working on saving the world. Every time I turned on the TV, it didn’t matter what show I was watching, it seemed like God was talking to me. I would pick out individual lines as messages from God. I was still writing stuff about “I have created seven layers of heaven and seven layers of hell,” but the Book of Revelations had changed me.

  After I read the Book of Revelations in the hospital, I believed that it was my mission to destroy all of the non-believers. I would threaten all of the non-believers with hell, and post letters to the Pentagon and the White House telling them to destroy India and the Middle East, to drop atomic bombs on them and kill everyone because they were evil sinners who worshipped false gods. I was trying to do what God told me to do in the Book of Revelations, destroy the world. I imagined the President in Washington reading my letters and talking with his men, “what do we do about this guy? Do we do what he tells us? He’s the Messiah, we have to!” In my mind there was panic in Washington, and around the world. They knew that I was here, and they knew that they had to destroy the world, but they didn’t want to. They didn’t know what to do about me, but they knew that I was the Messiah. I was here to start World War III, and they knew it, but they wanted to wait and see if I’d reconsider. I used to ask God, “which countries do you want me to destroy?” with a smile on my face. Of course there was no answer, and I’d look at the birthmark on my thigh, which is kind of in the shape of India, and it’s hot, and I’d ask, “is that it God? Do you want me to destroy India?” I thought that the heat from my birthmark signified the fires of hell. When I thought that I was supposed to destroy the world, I understood why God had chosen me. He had chosen me for my lack of empathy. It made sense to me that destroying the world was my mission.

  But then there was something else going on, something new had started to happen in my mind. I had separated into two distinct personalities. Because of the medication I was on, I had become distant from God. I could no longer feel Him surrounding me, I could no longer feel that beam of light shining down upon me, or hear the angels singing in heaven. My new, other personality came out when I smoked pot. The normal me was weak, obedient to God, fearful of God, distant from God, and small. I was the guy who was supposed to destroy the world, the guy who had to do whatever God told him to do. I named my new personality “The Leader.” The Leader didn’t give a fuck about the Bible, The Leader didn’t give a fuck about the Book of Revelations, or anything else in the Bible! “I’m here now, we can get rid of this stupid fucking book!” People like Moses, or Jesus, they were as nothing to The Leader! The Leader was the all-powerful, absolute King of Heaven and Earth! He answered to no one!

  I would smoke pot and I would realise what I had been saying, it all became real. I was trying to destroy the fucking world! What the fuck happened to me?! If I did that, I would be the Antichrist! I’ve been acting like the most evil man on the planet, sending letters to the President telling him to destroy half the world! Then I would change my ideas, from death and destruction and most of the world going to hell, and I would desperately send a new letter telling him that everyone is going to heaven! I was so worried that they were really going to bomb everyone, I had to get the new letter sent off quickly! I’d write stuff about monkeys and dolphins and whales going to heaven, then I’d think, why don’t I just send all of the animals to heaven?! I would write it down, and then I would see it in my mind, all of the animals playing around in heaven! I also imagined Hitler burning at millions of degrees in hell. He was my only occupant in hell, although I was preparing a place for bin Laden, and I had this invisible knob with which I could turn the heat up and down on Hitler. I would see it in my mind, Hitler’s relief when I turned it down, and his pain when I turned it back up. I had planned to give my Jewish friend Adam a turn playing with the knob too. I thought he’d like that, although he wouldn’t be able to see Hitler in his mind like I could.

  Slowly The Leader’s influence would begin fade, and I would start thinking that I had to do everything the Bible said again, and destroy the world and send all the sinners to hell. It was an internal struggle, made more difficult by the fact that it became very difficult for me to buy pot because none of my friends would sell it to me anymore. I would beg people for pot, I needed it to become The Leader, but most of the time they wouldn’t let me have it.

  The last time I hung out with Ben was when he came over and I asked him if he wanted to meet The Leader, he said “I’d very much like to meet The Leader.” It didn’t go quite as planned, we smoked pot and then I started crying and saying “just because I think I’m heaps shit, I’ve been made heaps powerful.” I had read this line in the Bible where Jesus says “all those who humble themselves will be exalted, and all those who exalt themselves will be humbled.” I would say to myself “I’m so humble, I’m just a nobody,” all the while claiming to have powers over heaven and hell, and trying to destroy the world, and then get goosebumps and tremble and feel my power increasing. Of course it was silly, I wasn’t being “humble” at all. I only saw Ben briefly once more after that, when he let me get some pot off him. He didn’t want anything more to do with me after that, I had made a fool of myself.

  I believed that Britney Spears was my virgin. I believed that Britney Spears was created for me, although I did question God’s taste in women, and I didn’t like the idea of God telling me who I should marry (because what would He know, right?). I’ve never been into pop music, but when I tried to think of a more attractive woman, I drew a blank.

  I also thought that Bill Gate’s money was saved up for me, and that was why there was this super-rich guy in the world. That was my money, I was going to take all of his money off him and leave him penniless! Ha! I was asking my mum how much of his money she wanted? I wanted her to know that I’ll take care of her, that she’ll never have to work again. I nicknamed Bill “Never Getting Through The Pearly” Gates. Stupid rich jerk.

  One night a few weeks after I got out of the hospital my parents were out for the night. I smoked some pot, I think it must have been the pot I got from Ben, and I drank some Wild Turkey on my own. I started panicking, I was really freaking out! I started freaking out thinking terrorists were going to kill me. I ended up cowering in the toilet, the smallest and coolest room in the house, trying to get away from their heat seeking missiles, desperately calling the police and asking them to protect me. The police came around but they didn’t do anything, they just talked to me for a few minutes and then left. Then mum came home and I had her drive me to the police station. I begged the police to lock me in a cell for the night to keep me safe from people trying to kill me. Then we went up to the hospital, and I could feel my body burning from all of the things I had been saying about destroying the world. I felt like I was going to go to hell and I could already feel the heat consuming me from the inside. I was terrified! I wanted scissors to cut out the word “bastard” from a t-shirt I was wearing that said “Bastard Squad,” because I didn’t want to be a sinner. I’ve never fel
t the fear of hell like that ever in my life. Hell is a scary place. When you truly believe that you are going to burn in hell, there is no other fear like it. I sent my final letter to the Pentagon, it was a handwritten note on a scrap of paper. It read “I’m a monster,” and nothing else. “They would know who sent it to them.”

  I was really heavily sedated for a long time. I told my psychiatrist Dr Pusic how I was so tired that I couldn’t do anything, and he would deny that the drugs were sedating. This made me believe that it wasn’t something I would ever get better from, it made me believe that my brain was just fucked, that I would never be able to get out of bed again, that my life was over. I spent the next year and a half sleeping twelve hours a night and having a nap in the afternoon. I tried going back to university, but I couldn’t do it. I really struggled making it through a shift at work too, but my bosses were quite nice to me and let me go home if I needed to.

  At home, my parents were shit. Every time I walked in the room Ken would say things, he would mutter names like “fuckwit,” “dickhead,” “arsehole.” Mum would ask why I’m always in my room, she would tell me that I smell, that my face looks bad, that I’m walking too heavily, that I’m lazy. She would have family photos taken and tell me how I ruin the picture. I would look around the hallway at the family photos and at how I didn’t fit in to this family. I felt like they weren’t really my family, that God was my real family, and these people just raised me, like I was adopted by this family. I would cover up myself in the pictures and look at the family without me, because I thought that soon I would be dead.

  One time when I mentioned my universe theory around Ken, he said “bullshit theory,” I’ve never been so insulted in my life. These people just wouldn’t believe that I was an intelligent guy. Could you imagine if Einstein’s parents had heard him mention his theory of Relativity and said “theory of bullshit”? It’s just fucked, I’ve always been a smart guy, and then suddenly everything I say is bullshit. I really just wanted someone to believe me, so my thoughts turned to my father, and how he used to compare me to Isaac Newton when I was a kid.

  So I went and tracked down my father. He wasn’t hard to find, he lived in Penrith as well. I went to his parents, my grandparent’s house, and I knocked on the door. My grandma answered the door, and I asked “is Bill here?” She didn’t know who I was, she just looked through the screen door and told me he was at the pub. I walked down to the pub and I saw him leaving, I said “can you buy me a beer?” He told me he would get me one, “just one.” We were talking for about twenty minutes, then something clicked and he said “are you Mickey? Are you my Mickey?” I don’t know who he thought he was talking to, but I told him I was. He was so happy to see me, he had a big smile on his face and a tear in the corner of his eye. He told me all about the aliens who harass him, the dolphin people, the diamond head people, the universe people, and light blue (greys). He told me he had over a hundred inventions, and he told me about his time machine, how if you lock yourself in a box of uranium you go back in time one hour for every twenty minutes you’re in there. He also told me about George’s (my grandfather’s) particle theory of gravity and his wealth tax.

  It was funny, I hadn’t seen my father since I was a little kid, but he was just like me. With the crazy theories, and his attitude to life was a lot like mine. Even the clothes he wore reminded me a lot of what I would look like if I were his age. He wasn’t the violent, angry man he was when he was younger, he was quiet and softly spoken, and he had trouble coping with modern society, in lots of ways he was like a child. I’ve always been the black sheep of my family, when I looked at those photos in the hallway I felt like I didn’t belong in that family, but now I knew where I came from. I was definitely my father’s son. Later I would realise that I was genetically engineered by God, a combination of (at least) third generation crazy theories on my father’s side, and (at least) third generation engineers/scientists on my mother’s side, it’s a perfect combination. Although more recently I've found out I have a cousin on my father's side who has a degree in chemical engineering, a masters in philosophy and a PhD in physics (I could have the order of those qualifications slightly mixed up), I also have an uncle who is an industrial chemist. That's strange, they're my subjects. My mother’s side of the family are all electrical engineers and electricians, but I’ve always hated electricity (as a subject).

  Anyway, as time passed, slowly I began to doubt myself and my beliefs, and something about smoking pot had changed for me. When I smoked pot now I could see the size of the claims I was making about myself, I could see how insane I had become. I needed pot at this time of my life, I needed it for therapy. Pot made me see things from a different perspective, but it was still very hard for me to buy. I would smoke it and rave on “I’m completely fucking insane! I’ve totally lost it! What the fuck happened to me?!” My friends saw me act like this when I smoked pot, so they didn’t want to give it to me, but I needed it for therapy, I needed it to get well. I would beg them, “please let me have some, I need it, I need it to make me better!” Sometimes they would give it to me, but always very reluctantly. As you may know from the twelve steps, admitting that you have a problem is always the first step to recovery.

  People think that crazy people know they’re crazy, but when you first go insane you don’t know you’re crazy, you wonder why no one will believe you. It took me about six months to start to really doubt myself, and it was hard. It’s hard realising that you’ve completely lost your mind. Your whole life you learn to trust what your brain is telling you, so if your brain starts lying to you, you don’t realise it, you believe what your brain is telling you. It was the pot that made me realise that I had completely lost my mind, without pot I believe the process would have taken a lot longer.

  I wanted to kill myself so badly, I felt like things would never get better. I would write suicide notes with tears streaming down my face, but I could never do it, what if I really was the Messiah? How could I face God if I killed myself and failed to do the job He chose me for? God would send me to hell for that, I was sure of it, and I could neither disappoint God, nor face the prospect of an eternity in hell. I started praying that God would make me the Messiah, because I realised I had no other chance for success in life other than if it were true. My whole career, my whole future, my whole life, had turned to dust. I would pace up and down in my room “make me the Messiah,” “I want to descend from heaven in glory,” I would do this for hours at a time. No one in the world has ever prayed so hard for anything so fantastic like I prayed for God to make me the Messiah.

  By this stage I had begun to believe that I was going to be killed, I made a lot of prayers about that too, “quick and painless God, please just make it quick and painless, a bullet to the head, and then I can rule in heaven.” I got this belief from a passage in the Book of Revelations.

  And I will appoint my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth.” They are “the two olive trees” and the two lampstands, and “they stand before the Lord of the earth.” If anyone tries to harm them, fire comes from their mouths and devours their enemies. This is how anyone who wants to harm them must die. They have power to shut up the heavens so that it will not rain during the time they are prophesying; and they have power to turn the waters into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague as often as they want. Now when they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the Abyss will attack them, and overpower and kill them. Their bodies will lie in the public square of the great city—which is figuratively called Sodom and Egypt—where also their Lord was crucified. For three and a half days some from every people, tribe, language and nation will gaze on their bodies and refuse them burial. The inhabitants of the earth will gloat over them and will celebrate by sending each other gifts, because these two prophets had tormented those who live on the earth.

  But after the three and a half days the breath of life from God entered them, and th
ey stood on their feet, and terror struck those who saw them. Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, “Come up here.” And they went up to heaven in a cloud, while their enemies looked on.

  At that very hour there was a severe earthquake and a tenth of the city collapsed. Seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the survivors were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.

  [Revelation 11:3-13]

  I thought that the two witnesses were The Leader and myself. I thought that I was going to be hailed as the Messiah, but some people would hate me for what I had to say, and Muslim terrorists would kill me. Then I would ascend into Heaven, just as it says, and the world would be destroyed and everyone would know that I really was the Messiah and they would believe and repent of their sins. I could picture myself in heaven, being greeted by God and being told that I did well, being told that He loved me, and that I was His favourite. I imagined being made ruler over the kingdom of Heaven and sitting on a throne with angels surrounding me. But first I would have to die, so I would pray “quick and painless God, just make it quick and painless.”

  I used to beg for God to talk to me and tell me what to do, I wished He would come as a burning bush like He did for Moses. I would go on drives out to lookouts and beg Him to talk to me, “why won’t you talk to me?!” “Tell me what to do!” I would threaten to jump off cliffs if He wouldn’t talk to me, but of course I never could, God called my bluff every time. I didn’t understand why God would tell Moses what to do but not me. He never did speak to me, and it broke my heart.

  I lost my car, nicknamed “the death car” by my friends, in late 2002. I used to tell my friends “I stand by my record of no fatalities.” When I went to get it registered that year the mechanic took it for a test drive, he came back and said “how do you drive this?!” I told him it’s not that hard, and then he gave me a massive list of problems with it. So I gave up on it, and I started having to walk everywhere. I used to walk into town a lot for something to do, it was only a 40 minute walk normally, but I was so drugged up I used to have to stop halfway and have a nap in the park. It was fucked, everything had become so difficult for me. Life used to be easy for me, but even the most simple things had become a struggle.