Judgement Day (14 page)

Emma didn’
t like me working on my theory, she said it made
me crazy, but Anita actually encouraged it. She offered to help me
rewrite the whole thing, to help me improve the language and
writing style. I was very appreciative and when I started reading
through it I noticed things that needed correcting. I also began
developing proper equations for the first time. Once again, I was a
man possessed. I obsessed over my theory, I bought a notebook and I
carried it around with me, writing down equations while I was at
work, deriving new field equations to rival Einstein’s. What I
achieved was nothing short of spectacular. I managed to derive
Einstein’s field equations, except with a new twist, from my
theory. I proved that I can arrive at the same mathematical
conclusions at Einstein, I proved that my theory can explain
everything his theory explained, and everything his theory failed
to explain. Achieving the same results as Einstein from a different
theory? Well, no one has ever done that before.

After about
a month of working on it, Anita said she couldn’t
handle it anymore, she was sick of hearing me talk about. I’d done
all I could anyway, so I finished writing it up and self-published
it. I was sick of dealing with astrophysicists, I’m not their
Messiah, I'm not Einstein, and I want nothing further to do with
any of them. They have wasted the last century working on a theory
that isn’t right. They would never abandon it for my sake, no
matter how worthless their work was, and it is worthless, all of
it. I have singlehandedly put every astrophysicist in the world to
absolute shame, and they would never admit it. They would prefer to
keep their heads buried in the sand, even while I devour
them.

Soon after publishing my
theory the signs dried up, and
I knew I had no further reason to stay with Anita. I thought that
we were meant to be together, so I stayed with her even against my
better judgement, because I had no other friends left. After she
helped me rewrite my theory, however, I knew why I was really told
to be with her. The signs point the way but they never tell you the
destination. I owe Anita a great debt of gratitude, and one day I
will pay her back in full for what she did for me, but it was time
to move on. She is the only person who has ever helped me with my
theories, and the only person who has ever believed in them, who
has believed in me, but I had to go, it was time to
leave.

What
I really wanted to do after I broke up with Emma was to go
travelling around Australia. It probably started when I bumped into
Silk’s ex-girlfriend at the petrol station one day, she told me
she’d been travelling up and down the east coast and living in her
car. It sounded pretty cool to me. I decided I wanted to travel up
to North Queensland, but of course I met Anita, so all of my travel
plans were put on hold. By the time I did break up with Anita it
was getting too late in the year to go to North Queensland, the
monsoon season would be starting soon, so I headed south instead. I
can name a few reasons, in hindsight, why I came to Tasmania. It’s
kind of like Darren Brown, or the movie ‘Inception,’ even though I
wasn’t specifically told by God to travel to Tasmania, He made me
think it was my idea.

Apart from the seasonal problems with
going to North Queensland, my first thoughts about Tasmania
probably started when I saw the Australian movie ‘The Hunter.’ ‘The
Hunter’ is set in Tasmania and the scenery was amazing, that was
the first time I ever thought Tasmania would be a great place to
go. The other thing that had a big influence on my subconscious was
the song ‘Pickles From The Jar,’ by Courtney Barnett. I really
liked that song and in the chorus is the line “you're from
Adelaide, I’m from Hobart.” I’d never known anyone from Hobart
before, but I guess it sounded like a cool place to be from. The
other factor was that there are plenty of beautiful places to go
camping in Tasmania. Of course, the final reason to go was that I
had no friends left in Katoomba, with the exception of a mate of
mine called Michael.

So after breaking up with Anita I started
saving, I also started playing a lot of blackjack and I was
doing really well at it. I was
regularly winning $1000 on the cards, sometimes once a fortnight,
sometimes once a week, sometimes twice a week, and I was using my
winnings to buy everything I needed and put away money for my trip.
Michael let me stay at his place while I saved for my trip, and to
pay him back I took him away with me for the first week to visit
his brother up north.

After dropping Michael back in
Katoomba
, I spent the
night at my mum’s place and headed straight for my first stop in
Canberra. By this stage I fancied I could make a good living as a
blackjack player, but I'll tell you, it’s been an absolute
disaster. Canberra Casino was a disaster, electronic blackjack at
Batemans Bay was a disaster, Canberra Casino the second time was a
disaster. I skipped Melbourne Casino, but it was the same story at
Launceston and Hobart Casinos. I don’t know what happened, but I
just couldn’t win anymore.

I was running out of money in
Tasmania when a woman replied
to an advertisement I’d put on Gumtree for a travel buddy. Actually
she’d replied a few weeks earlier, I told her to let me know when
she gets here, not expecting to hear from her again. I’d since
removed the advertisement, but one day she contacted me and told me
she was arriving in Hobart the next day. I called her back and to
my surprise she actually sounded really cool on the phone, so I
picked her up from the airport.

Her name was
Sian, before she arrived I’d been sitting at the
same campsite for two weeks being miserable. Sian saved my trip,
together we travelled around Tasmania and explored the island, it
was excellent to have some company. Before she left she helped me
write up my CV and motivated me to apply for jobs. I transferred
the last of my savings to enjoy my time with her, so after she left
I was broke, but four days later I got a job working on an orchard
doing apple thinning.

A couple of people laughed when I told
them I was working on an orchard and
mentioned the movie ‘Young Einstein.’ It’s an
Australian movie, in it Albert Einstein is a Tasmanian who grew up
on an orchard. I actually named my email address after that movie.
So it got me thinking about how Isaac Newton watched an apple fall
and developed his theory of gravity. It also made me think of Adam
& Eve, I know it wasn't an apple tree in the Bible, but often
in art Adam & Eve are depicted eating from an apple tree. I
realised that the orchard was the perfect place for me to be
discovered! “This was it,” I decided, “it’s perfect,” “it’s what my
religion is all about! The world is a stage!” “What better place
for me to be found than on an orchard in Tasmania?!”

So Christmas came and went with no media
knocking at my door. Then New Year
’s came and went with no media knocking at my
door. Meanwhile I was completely miserable, I hated this job at the
orchard and the only reason I was sticking with it was because of
The Stage. One day I couldn’t take it anymore, it was the day after
David Bowie died, I guess I was feeling a bit mortal. I felt like
life was too short to be miserable, so I quit. Financially it was a
bad idea, but I just couldn’t work at that fucking orchard any
longer.

So now
I’ve found myself back in my tent, camping not far from the
place I was when Sian messaged me, with no money in my pocket. I
stopped taking my medication for a few days, I was hoping to see
The Stage again, I was hoping The Leader might tell me what to do.
I didn't see The Stage, but I did change into The Leader. He thinks
that’s a stupid name, by the way, he doesn’t have a name. He thinks
I give everything stupid names, “don’t give me one of your stupid
fucking names, Mick.” He called me “pathetic,” and said I’d
completely fucked up his excellent religion, and that he was sick
of me moaning about my life and not doing anything to change it. He
was right, I’d made The Stage all about me. The Stage wasn’t about
me, it was about everyone. I’d also made myself sound like an
arsehole, which I’m not, so I needed to fix that too.

I always tell people that just because
something is your
fate,
you can’t just sit around waiting for God to make your fate come to
fruition, but that was exactly what I’ve been doing. It’s what I’ve
been doing my entire adult life. Every little piece of progress
I’ve ever made on my theories or on my religion, God has had to
drag me kicking and screaming and resisting the whole way. In my
defence, it is hard to keep going when everyone tells you you’re
crazy, or you’re wrong, even when every fibre of your being knows
the truth. Everyone has been calling me crazy or wrong for so many
years now that, for the most part, I’ve been dependent on some sort
of miracle.

The Leader (
or whatever he would prefer people call him) was
only around for a couple of days this time, but he showed me the
error of my ways. God helps those who help themselves. He will
never give me my break until I stop fucking up His excellent
religion.

I told you how
God brought me to Tasmania, I won a lot of money
before I left Katoomba to make sure I left, but then He made me
broke, He made me get a job at an orchard. That job would have been
the perfect place for me to be discovered, so when my miracle
didn’t come, and I found myself once again broke and in a tent, I
realised that if I want to succeed I can’t spend my life waiting
for a miracle. I would have actually been on the first boat out of
Tasmania, but funnily enough, one of the two boats that ferries
people between Tasmania and Melbourne had an accident the night I
quit my job at the orchard. I could get on the boat now, but I know
I’m meant to stay in Tasmania a little longer. I believe in The
Stage, so if this is where God wants me then this is where I must
stay.

My limp is back too, my old Easter II
injury has flared up
again. It came back from spending too much time standing on
ladder rungs at the orchard. It’s really bad now after I was
worried my car wouldn’t start so I walked a 16km round trip into
town to use the computer at the library. A lady picked me up from
the side of the highway and saved me the last couple of kilometres
back to base camp, but it wasn’t until I got out of her car that I
realised I couldn’t walk anymore. God probably thinks that’s funny,
what a jerk. I’m in pain here, ha ha ha! My car is still starting,
but only just, I’ll have to get that fixed asap, which will only
delay my trip back to the mainland even longer, due to budget
problems. Not being able to be on my feet also prevents me from
finding another job, at least until I can walk again anyway, which
could be a while.

Do you want to
know why I think I’m in Tasmania? I mean, why I’m
really here? I think I’m here because my time has finally come.
I’ve probably offended just about every religion in the world, even
though all I’m guilty of is speaking the truth. Organised religion
has always feared the truth, if they had a leg to stand on they
wouldn’t fear the truth, they would embrace the truth. I’ll
probably be the most hated man in the world, at least for a short
while, but I am unrepentant because I have done nothing wrong.
Tasmania has only a small population, the only way in (or out) of
here is by air or by sea, this is probably the safest place for me
to be right now. Maybe that’s paranoid, I don’t know, because maybe
no one will ever even know I existed.

So here I am. Writing
about my religion on my phone, using the
computer at the library to publish it. I’m at the end. I’m broke,
homeless, and in Tasmania. The initials “JC” are carved into the
tree where I sit, I know I’m in the right place. I don’t know what
I’ll do if no one finds me here, but it doesn’t matter, it’s not
for me to ask. I’ll just wait for that next sign to point the way.
We’re all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the
stars.

Before I finish this section of the book,
I’d just like to say that I feel bad about the way I talked about
my mum (and Ken) in this book, but that stuff all happened a long
time ago. Truth be told, these days I’m actually a bit of a mummy’s
boy. It’s embarrassing, I’m a 34 year old man and I message my mum
more than anyone else, except my English friend Sian. Without her
help I would have starved to death on this ill-fated trip, and I
was really flattered when her and Ken drove all the way down to see
me. It’s just a shame I can’t tell them what I’ve really been
working on down here, but they’ll probably disown me when they read
my book, at least briefly. They may change their minds when I
declare world peace. Maybe they can be dicks, but if they managed
to raise the king of the world, then surely they must have done
something right. So I’m sorry mum and Ken, I love you both, thanks
for everything.

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Contents

Do You Have No Knowledge Of Good & Evil?

An open
letter to Britney Spears.

Dear Britney,

I have a
question to ask you, it's a question that I
already know the answer to, but I need you to know the answer and
to understand what it means.

Do you have no knowledge of good &
evil?

This is not a question you will need to
think about. To answer it you need to look inside yourself, to peer
into your soul. If it is true, that you have no knowledge of good
& evil, it should hit you in the face, blow your mind, turn
your whole world upside down. Suddenly everything you think and
feel will make sense.