I still hadn’t been able to get my theories of time, gravity and the infinite Universe published, but I thought maybe this pyramid thing could be my opening. It was simple, and easy to understand. I thought if I could get that published, then I could make a name for myself and show them my universe theory. Now that I possessed the power of the pyramid, I believed I was officially unstoppable!
When I was writing up my theory of the pyramid, I borrowed a book from the library about Isaac Newton because I wanted to use the picture of Newton designing the pyramid on the title page. The book was called ‘Newton: The Making of Genius,’ and it had a picture of Newton watching a falling apple on the cover. I opened the book and it said “For Michael” on the inside, so I thought I should read it. That’s one of the many examples of following The Stage, before I even knew what The Stage was. I didn't borrow that book to read it, but when I saw that it said “For Michael,” I knew that I was meant to read it.
That book really opened my eyes. It was all about how Isaac Newton became a legend and how idolised he is. I was reading this book about Newton and thinking, “oh no, this theory of gravity thing is a really big deal, people are going to know everything about me!” I guess at the time I didn't realise how far I’d come, how important I’d become while I’d been plugging away on my computer. I started to become afraid, afraid that the church would find out about all this crazy Messiah stuff and come after me and kill me. I wanted to leave it all behind, I just wanted to be a famous scientist, but I knew there was no escaping my past. I started to panic, I didn’t know what to do. I still didn’t know who God was or what the law was or who goes to heaven, I didn’t know how to judge the world! I had written a book about Jesus being a fraud, and I thought I could use it as a posthumous insurance policy, or retribution policy. I thought, “if the church kill me, then the whole world will find out the truth about Jesus.”
Then I started to get guilty, I thought, “how do I know that the Jewish God is the real God? What if the God of the Bible isn’t real? What if the real God actually likes Jesus? Then I would go to hell.” The story of Cain and Abel weighed heavily on my mind, Cain is jealous because Abel makes “a sacrifice that is pleasing to the LORD,” and Cain kills him. Then Cain fears for his own life so God puts a mark on him so that no one will harm him. I couldn’t help but fear that the birthmark on my thigh was the mark of Cain, I didn’t want to be Cain, I didn’t want to kill my brother! I destroyed my book about Jesus and I told myself to be strong. I told myself “no matter what they do to me, don’t blab about Jesus.” I realised that I had no right to tell people what they can and can’t believe, God had never spoken to me. I didn’t know who God was, I didn’t know anything about God, the covenant of peace wasn’t my responsibility, it was God’s covenant! I believed that were I to say the wrong thing about God, I would go to hell. Some people claim to fear God, but they are liars, if they truly feared God they would investigate who God is so they don’t piss Him off. I wrote a reminder on my computer screen to be strong, to keep my mouth shut. No matter what happens, no matter who comes after me, I could not blab about Jesus, I did not know who God really was. I wrote…
I discovered, I did not create,
I have no knowledge of good & evil,
I am not like God. Remember the rainbow.
I looked up at what I had written on the computer screen, and I realised that I had just discovered the very definition of sin! By trying to deny my right to judge the world, I had inadvertently judged the world.
“Oh no, it really is true!”
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Chapter 4
“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.”
(From ‘As You Like It,’ by William Shakespeare)
With my revelation of “no knowledge of good & evil,” suddenly my life made sense, I saw myself in a whole new light. I wrote, “I always wondered what was wrong with me, apparently there’s something wrong with everyone else!” I looked at my behaviour, at my life, and I knew I was “the One.” I knew why God had chosen me, I have no knowledge of good & evil! I understood, there is something special about me, it wasn’t some sort of cosmic mistake. I couldn’t keep any sort of law because I was never meant to keep any sort of law! I was a massive fuckup, but there was a reason for it, how is one with no knowledge of good & evil meant to survive in a world filled with the knowledge of good & evil? My life finally made sense, “I really am the Messiah, what a spinout!”
My mind was blown again, I had a world to save and I didn’t really know how to do it. I couldn’t go to work anymore, I had too much on my mind. There was so much to do, “the covenant of peace, it really was my responsibility!”
I couldn’t go to work so I moved out of Tony’s place. I apologised for the lack of notice, but told him I couldn’t pay rent anymore and to keep the bond. I found myself wandering the streets, wondering what I was supposed to do next, and I came across some Mormons. “That’s it,” I thought, “I have to learn about other religions.” I asked the Mormons for a copy of their book, the Book of Mormon, which they gave to me without hesitation, and I began to read it.
The Book of Mormon is a very cute book, I knew a little about it from a book I read about Mormonism and Joseph Smith in the church library. If you’ve ever read the Book of Mormon, it’s quite obviously completely fabricated. The way it’s written, it’s written as if it was written a really long time ago, in this phoney Old English style, but it was quite a good book, with some good quotes. The story was that Joseph Smith dug up these old plates in a forgotten language and used seer stones to translate them, but for some reason he translated them into phoney Old English, because it’s “so old,” I guess. Under my new religious law, “no knowledge of good & evil,” it didn’t matter if a religion was fake, it didn’t matter what you believed, and Mormons are all really nice people. My favourite quote was “Know ye not that there are more nations than one, that I, the Lord your God, created all people and care for all men?”
I moved in with some friends from the church, they let me sleep on my inflatable mattress in the lounge room, which was really cool of them. The Mormons who gave me the book found where I was living and those guys would come around and see me just about every day. I remember the name Elder Bushman, he was a nice guy, but they would come around every day and I would talk about the Book of Mormon with them. I would quote my favourite passages and talk about my favourite stories, and they would get excited and try to get me to join their church. I wasn’t interested in joining, I just wanted to read their book, but they came around constantly. It became pretty annoying after a while, but then one day Elder Bushman and his mate came over and said they were being transferred to a different area. “Finally,” I thought, “these guys will leave me alone!” The very next day the new guys came around, “oh no, will this never end?!” I thought, but they only came around the one time, and they got it that I wasn’t interested in joining. The Book of Mormon was the first non-Christian holy book I read, and it made me understand that there was truth to be found in all religions, that all religions were created by God, no matter how silly their books may be.
Because I couldn’t work anymore, my new case manager insisted that we go to see Dr Pusic and get me put on the disability support pension. We went down to Penrith to see him, and something had changed. Dr Pusic was always a cunt, but he was actually being really nice to me. I kept saying “what are you talking about? Why are you being so nice?” He filled out the paperwork for the pension and offered to arrange for public housing. It wasn’t until I was leaving that I realised what had changed, my old case manager was a big fat woman called Robin, my new case manager was quite an attractive woman with big tits called Karen. I realised that creepy fucker was only being so nice because he wanted to look good in front of the woman with the big tits, but fuck it, at least I had some income no
w.
I started reading about more religions, I read a translation of the Koran which I borrowed from the library. I was expecting to see prophecies about myself in there, so I was a little disappointed that the Koran didn’t have a heap of prophecies like the Bible. It was an alright read, it wasn’t the violent oppressive book I imagined it would be, it was just a heap of stories from the Bible only with a little bit of a twist. It had all the same shit as the Bible, it was just a little different, there was extra stuff of course, but I was surprised that it wasn’t the book about suicide bombings that I expected. I had also read about the Koran that there is something special about the way it is written, “If they say ‘he has invented it himself,’ say to them ‘produce ten invented chapters like it,’ but if you fail, then know that it was written by God.” Of course it’s blasphemous to try to write like the Koran, so whether other people could write like that we’ll never know, but I didn’t really understand what it was about the Koran, why it was unique. Years later when I asked a Muslim friend about it he told me that it’s like Arabic Shakespeare, which I thought sounded pretty cool.
My favourite passage from the Koran was called ‘The Unbelievers,’ “To the unbelievers say, ‘I do not believe what you believe, and you do not believe what I believe. I will never worship what you worship, and you will never worship what I worship. You have your own religion, and I have mine.’” If only Muslim extremists would actually listen to that passage, this whole September 11, War On Terror, thing might never have happened.
There was another passage in the Koran that caught my attention, “To the Jews say, ‘If you say that you alone of all men are God’s friends, you must wish for death, if what you say be true!’” It reminded me of something my friend Adam told me once about the Jews. I once told him I was considering converting to Judaism (a passing phase) because I didn’t really believe in Jesus. He told me that the Jews would never accept me, that they don’t like non-Jews joining their club. It made me realise that the Jews non-acceptance of anyone who isn’t Jewish really is the source of all of their problems. The Koran taught me that really the Arabs just wanted in on their religion, but they could never be accepted so they started their own religion and made the Jews their enemy. The same thing happened with Jesus, Jesus introduced the Jewish God to the Europeans because the Europeans liked their God too, and the Europeans made the Jews their enemy. The Jews think that they should stick together because they’ve been so persecuted for so long, but it is because they’ve created this exclusive club that others want to be a part of that they have been persecuted. If you have a great religion and you don’t allow others to be a part of it, then they will get the shits with you. Instead of being “God’s chosen people,” and accepting the praises of others, they ruined it by not allowing others in on their faith. It’s not just their religion of course, but to be Jewish is to be part of an exclusive society that you can only join by birth. Separating themselves from the rest of the world may seem to bring them safety in numbers, but it has only ever caused problems for the Jewish people throughout all of history.
I had begun writing my new holy book, for my new religion of no knowledge of good & evil. I had to write it at the library because I no longer had a computer. I would write what I could, then save it and email it to myself. Then the next time I would want to write something, I would download my book from my email, write in it, then send it to myself again. This is how I began to write about my new religion.
I found another book of interest to me, it was about a code in the Bible, the book I read was the sequel, ‘The Bible Code 2.’ What most caught my interest about it was the physicist who discovered the Bible code, his name was Dr Eliyahu Rips, a Hebrew professor. I realised that Dr Rips was the prophet Elijah. Not only was he a prophet, but he was a mathematician, a physicist, and a Jew. He was the one who would help me. I began to email him, slowly at first, but with every lack of reply my emails became more and more intense. Not only did I email him my theories, I posted them to him, and I even used couriers. I tried everything to get his attention, but still, there was no reply, he just sat in his own stubborn silence. As time passed I became more and more desperate, and more and more angry with this man who was supposed to help me.
After a couple of months or so of living with Nathan from church and his friends, they were being evicted from the house we were in because it was being demolished, and I had nowhere else to go. I also happened to run out of medication a day or two before we had to leave. The effects of running out of medication were unusual, I began talking in funny voices. I was imaging people’s reactions to the things I had been writing about in my holy book. I would talk in the strange accents of people from around the world and laugh at the jokes I had made in my book. Then it was time to go.
I didn’t have anywhere to go, so I decided I would go camping in the bush. While I was sitting out in the bush on my own, I began to develop some of my characters more. I invented a character, ‘The B-Grade Celebrity On A Late Night Talk Show,’ he tells the story of the time he met Jack Nicholson, it was just an excuse to do his dodgy Jack Nicholson impression and pretend to be famous by association. There was a second B-Grade Celebrity, he talked about what it was like working with Robert Deniro. I also began to imagine myself as a South American revolutionary, and I would say “revolution not going so well” a lot. I began talking in the voices of famous people, the Pope, the Prime Minister, Fidel Castro, imagining their reactions to what I was writing. I was creating characters to keep myself entertained, when suddenly something clicked! “God does exactly the same thing! God invents characters to keep Himself entertained, to make Himself laugh!” This was the first of my revelations on The Stage.
After a few nights in the bush, I went to stay at mum’s place. She picked me up from the station and said “you can’t sleep in the bush,” “well, I can’t sleep here, or anywhere else, can I? What the fuck am I supposed to do?” I thought. I asked if I could just stay until the weekend, when I would be able to afford to stay in a hotel. I heard her and Ken talking, Ken said “Saturday?!” As if three nights at my parent’s place is a lot to ask. I was awake all night that night, not taking medication had turned me into an insomniac. I had bought some herbal sleeping pills from the chemist, but it didn’t matter how many I took, I still couldn’t get to sleep. I was awake all night talking softly in strange voices and laughing to myself. I left the next morning without saying goodbye and went back to the bush.
When I left my parent’s place I had forgotten my tent, but something was changing, I felt like my time was about to come. I didn’t have many supplies, I had plain rice, plain pasta, and a bottle of tomato sauce, that was about it. “I was supposed to rough it,” I decided, “that was God’s plan.” I didn’t have my tent, but I remembered a cave I saw the last time I was camping, above Blue Pool in the National Park in Glenbrook, “I could sleep in that cave.” I got to the station, I was listening to ‘War Pigs’ on my discman, singing along and laughing to myself. I was really starting to look like a fucking lunatic. I hiked down to Blue Pool from the station carrying all of my possessions on my back. When I got down there I dropped and smashed my bottle of tomato sauce. “Great!” I thought, “now I don’t even have any flavouring!” I climbed up to the cave, and you’ll never believe what I found when I got there, a perfect natural throne carved into the rock! I wrote in permanent marker, “Judgement Day, Mick’s Throne,” and I drew a crown above the hole for the head. “I was there, it was Judgement Day, and this was my throne!”
I thought about Jesus in ‘The Last Temptation of Christ,’ when he sits in the desert and refuses to leave until God comes and speaks to him. I decided I was going to do the same thing in this magical place. I was not going to leave until God spoke to me and it was Judgement Day. I lasted three days on plain pasta and plain rice, then I surrendered and went to the charity shop for some food, and I made myself some Mulligan stew from a heap of cans of assorted shit they gave me. After four days I
gave up and left. I felt weak for leaving so soon, but God wasn’t coming to speak to me.
When my disability pension came in I booked into the Gearins Hotel in Katoomba, then went to Silk’s place. His parents served me some dinner, I couldn’t believe what they served, plain fucking pasta! There were a few bits of bacon and stuff in it, but still, as if three days of nothing else wasn’t enough. I picked at it a little, but I didn’t eat much, I couldn’t handle any more plain pasta. I asked if I could use the computer, I had been thinking a lot about Britney Spears, I imagined we were like Romeo & Juliet, the star-crossed lovers who were meant to be together. I pictured us cruising all over the world in love, I imagined we were like puppets or toys being played with by God, then I had a revelation… “The World Is A Stage!” I could see it, the world is a giant play, and I began imagining all of the great plays I could put on! The great performances I could do! The great events! All of the exciting things I would be doing with my life! “The World Is A Stage! Shakespeare, like Spears! Me and Britney Spears were like Romeo & Juliet! The star-crossed lovers that were meant to be together!” (Yeah, yeah, I know, Romeo & Juliet is a tragedy. Give me a break, I was just a kid.)
Judgement Day Page 7