Judgement Day (6 page)

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
they 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 of
f
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.”
W
hen 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.

During this
time of being really messed up and not working much, I really
started to gamble a lot. I was so bored in the day time that I
would wander up to the pub and play poker machines and lose my
money for something to do. Mum started controlling my money, which
was really annoying. She used to give me ten or twenty dollars each
day, or whatever I needed, but never much money. It was so
frustrating, but it was probably for the best really, or I would
have lost it all the day I got paid
.
S
he
also made me go to
G
amblers
A
nonymous. I was getting bad, the only thing that
gave me any pleasure anymore was gambling. I couldn’t smoke pot any
more, I had no one to drink with in the day times, so I would sit
at the pub and play poker machines. I was bad, but no matter how
bad I was, you can’t make someone quit gambling by forcing them to
go to meetings.

Even though I
was starting to get over my delusions somewhat, I still wondered
why I had been cursed to believe these delusions in the first
place. I used to write out odds of all of the signs I had received.
It went something like this, although I would add and remove things
depending on what I was thinking about at the time.

Odds of being
called Michael 1/50

Odds of having
the middle name David 1/50

Odds of having
a mum called Mary (or Rosemary) 1/100

Odds of having
a large birthmark on my thigh 1/1000

Odds of being
born under the Southern Cross 1/20

Total odds
1/5,000,000,000

About how many
people live on earth.

Odds of
discovering the infinite Universe 1/1,000,000

Total odds
1/50,000,000,000,000,000

That’s fifty
million billion to one, which is more people than have ever lived
on earth.

Although I was
haunted by what I later termed “prophetic stigmata,” and I would
ask God, “why would you make me go insane like that if I’m not
really the Messiah?” I did begin to get over my delusions somewhat,
and I became interested in attending church. I went to my sister
Katie’s church, it was one of those churches where everyone waves
their arms around in the air and dances and stuff. I tried to get
into it, but it really wasn’t for me.

A friend of
Katie’s, Nathan, invited me along to his church. Nathan’s church
was much more my style. Just a guy out the front talking about the
Bible, and a few songs, it was much more intellectual than Katie’s
church. The youth minister, Dave, he took me under his wing
somewhat. Dave was a really nice guy, and we used to get together
and sit and talk about the Bible. He taught me all about it, I
would ask him questions, and he would tell me what the Bible says.
As I learned more, my questions became more and more difficult, but
Dave always gave me the best answer he could. I also read most of
the books in the church library, not the ones about how to live
your life or anything, but the ones about the Bible itself. I
studied the Bible intensely for quite some time.

I used to
periodically have to buy new Bibles. I’d have a Bible for a while,
and I’d go through all the prophetic verses underlining prophecies
relevant to myself. It would get to the point
where
half of the prophetic books were
underlined, then I’d come to my senses and have to throw it out.
The new Bible would last a little while, but soon enough I’d be at
it again, underlining prophecies all over the place.

This was when
Katie moved to America. Katie got accepted into this intensive
Bible course in Colorado called 24/7. I was pretty sad to see her
go, Katie was my only friend in the house really. Mum and Ken were
both pretty shit to me, but Katie was always nice. I picked on her
a lot when I was little, but as we got older we became closer, it
was very hard for me when she left. I would send her emails while
she was in Colorado, but I always wrote this angry shit. I would
take offence at anything she said, even if she wasn’t being mean,
which she never was. I had a very angry brain at the time. I was
alright talking, but when I wrote my brain was someone else and he
was really angry and all of this horrible stuff would come out. In
the end I told her I can’t send her any more emails, and that we
have to just talk on the phone. I couldn’t control my brain, but
when I spoke I was myself.

I’m still like
that really, I don’t mean angry, but different when I write.
There’s a lot of stuff in this book that I would never say out
loud. This part, my story, this is written by me, but when I get
into the Judgement Day stuff, I honestly don’t know who writes
that. I don’t know where my theory of SpaceFluidity comes from
either. I’m a pretty simple guy, I go to work, I drink beer, I hang
out with friends, but I live one life in the real world, and
another life in, I don’t know, some other place that I don’t know
if it’s real or not.