TURBINE | KAPOHAU

So, I’m in the library sitting on a on a beanbag and William Shakespeare’s sitting on my face.

  Shakespeare?

Yeah, okay, so not Shakespeare but the play, you know, Hamlet. I’m using it to shade my eyes cos man, it’s hot out there and the sun is streaming through that window, right?

  Right.

So yeah, I’m sitting there and I’ve got this essay due, right, and instead of writing it, I’m baking up behind that double glazed window. It’s really still and I’m just praying for some wind just to stir things up a bit, cause like I said, it’s hot, mother fucking hot. Sorry, can I say that?

  Go on.

So, I’m sitting there and I’m thinking about Hamlet. You know, the soliloquy – To be or not to be, and I’m thinking you know, that really is the question isn’t it? Whether it is nobler to… blah, blah, blah. You know how it goes. And I’m thinking this guy’s like totally angsty isn’t he? I mean like totally fucked up. And then I start thinking: what does it mean anyway? You know, to be or not to be. I mean this guy, he’s going on about how miserable human life is, and how it might be better to like top himself rather than carry on living in his shit but, he’s scared of what might happen and he’s thinking maybe death would be worse?

So I’m thinking that and I’m still not started on my essay and its due in a couple of days. Yeah, I’ll have a glass of water please.

  Request for water 14.22

Thanks. And like I said, man, it’s hot. So I take the book off my face and then I start thinking about school. About my English teacher, Mr Lee, and how he used to tell us about the verb to be. You know like, to be a sentence, a phrase must have a verb. For example, the car is red. The car is in the state of being red (in the present). Or, the car was red (in the past tense). Or, the cars are (plural) still red.

  You start thinking about high school grammar?

Yeah, yeah. And then I switch on to Sesame Street. You know, today Sesame Street was brought to you by the letter B and that, and I start humming that tune In the neighbourhood and then I start thinking about that Beatles song Let it be, and next thing I’m singing it away in my head, and I see this bee!

  A bee.

Yeah, this bee! And I think, fuck that’s fucking trippy. Because I’ve been thinking about be-ing and then, there’s this bee. Get it? Outside on the bush under the window. And I’m watching this bee and I’m thinking, far out, that is one busy little bee just being. How he’s like just getting on with it, getting on with doing his thing, being a bee you know, searching for food, sticking his bee beak or whatever it is deep into that flower. And how he doesn’t even know that all the while he’s busy having a good feed, all that sticky pollen’s grabbing on to his hairy little legs. Like Velcro, right?

  Go on.

Yeah, so all the while he’s just doing his thing and he’s just like getting on with it and there’s totally something bigger going on. And he has no idea. None. You know, like he’s doing this really important work, fulfilling some kind of higher purpose, like he’s contributing to the whole of life by pollinating the planet, and he doesn’t even know it.

  Not. Even. Aware.

Right. So then I start thinking about that. And I start thinking, maybe that’s how it is? You know, like maybe we’re all just getting on with our thing, going to work, playing basketball, skating, sitting in the library trying to write a fucking essay and all the while there’s something bigger going down. And we don’t even know it?

  Subject goes to window.

Like maybe, you know, you cross that road over there at a certain time, on a certain day, at a certain moment. And while you’re getting across that road to the shop for your pie or your Coke or whatever, that car there has to slow down so you can get yourself across. And then you crossing that street, and that guy slowing right down means that a hundred meters or so down the road, that guy doesn’t T-bone that other car going through the intersection with the mum and her two kids on their way home from school. And she just slides on through, totally unaware that had you not crossed that road and slowed that guy down, he would have ploughed into her car, and it’s probably just a shit car, that would like completely crumple like a can cause she’s got no money, and she would have lost everything.

So, she carries on driving home, bitching over her shoulder at the kids whining in the back seat, and she doesn’t even know how close she came to being KA–PUT. And the guy, he carries on home to his wife or back to work or whatever, stressed out because he hasn’t got the job or the money he thinks he should have by now, and you just carry on getting your dollar bag of lollies or your pie, or your coke and all the while you don’t even know you’ve saved that bitching woman from a life of pain and suffering. You’re all like completely oblivious.

  That’s what you were thinking?

Yeah. So I’m thinking about that, and the sun’s still coming in hot on my face and I close my eyes and then I get this message, like this fucking voice in my head, like it’s the clearest thought I’ve ever had. Like clearer than that glass of water you’ve got there and that’s clear. I mean that’s got to be filter water hasn’t it?

  Subject sits down at table.

So I hear this voice and I think shit, that is some heavy shit, like I’ve got to get my pad out and write this down because that is the best goddam thought I’m ever gonna have. So I get my pen and I listen hard and then I write it down and…, I’ve got it here somewhere.

Here, here it is. See it’s real messy because I had to write fast or I was gonna forget. You know when you get those real important thoughts when you’re on the toilet or you’re about to go to sleep and you think, “I’ll remember that,” but when you wake up you just don’t, or you do, but you don’t remember the same. So anyway, I grabbed my pen and… Here, this is what I wrote.

  Subject presents piece of paper.

HUMAN BEINGS EXIST IN A PARADOX OF DUALITY. IT IS ONLY WHEN WE ARE AT OUR MOST SURRENDERED; WE CAN BE AT OUR MOST POWERFUL.

 

  Okay

So yeah, you can see it’s pretty fucking out there right? I mean can you see what I mean?

  Go on.

Okay, so I was just looking at these words on the page and I was like “What the fuck does this even mean?” I mean, I wrote this but I don’t even understand it myself.

And then I think maybe I didn’t write it, and it starts to freak me out, like maybe this is the start of something like a gift, like channelling God or something. So then I think, far out, this sure is some trippy morning, so I think maybe I need to get outta here and go for a walk.

So I pack up my shit and I go out into the street and like I said, it was hot, I mean really hot, so I took of my shirt and then I was walking around and I could feel that heat on my skin and I was like, this is hotter than I’ve ever felt the sun. So I started thinking, maybe you know it’s more than the sun, maybe I’m being touched by something, you know, maybe that’s where those fucking words came from.

And I’m trying to work it all out so I stop and I shut my eyes and then I get it. I get the message, like the real message about the way that bee came and the way I had to write those words and I get it real clear. And I think, that’s it!

  Can you clarify that?

Like, I’m a human being right, but at the same time, I’m God. Get it? That’s the duality. Like we’re all God. We’re all here in our human bodies but at the same time we have this Godself and we’re all just plugged into it like electricity, you know like a great big God-grid. And somehow, we need to find a way to make sure that our Godself is the one in charge, surrender to it, let it drive the car, see?

  Continue.

So I concentrate and I let myself surrender and then I feel my Godself checking in, I mean right in. And then I am God. And I say to my Godself “what do you want from me?”

And then I sit down in the shade and I take off my pants because it’s so damn hot and I feel like I am going to burn up with all this God in me, so I sit down on the bench there outside the library and I know I’m in my underwear and I know I have my eyes shut, and I know it looks bad, but I have to let my Godself be in charge. And then I open my eyes and I look and I look and I see just a wreck of a place.

  Can you explain?

I mean, I see a totally fucked up world, you know. Like the environment and the homeless guy on the corner, and all the fucking polluting cars and all the miserable suits chugging on to work, nobody even taking the time to notice what a fuck-up everything is and then I feel so fucking disappointed. I mean my Godself is so disappointed with it all. With all of us.

And I mean if you could let your God self-talk to you, you’d see what I saw, I mean, it’s a total fuck up. And then I start thinking about that bee again and I can hear that Beatles song coming to me like, from here…

  Subject points to abdomen

And I see people staring and they’re sort of hurrying past like I’m something they need to be afraid of, but I’m not. They don’t even realise they’re witnessing God. God in action.

And then I get… I don’t know, angry I guess. I feel so sad and so mad about how fucked up everything is and I close my eyes again, and I start thinking about Hamlet and how sad he was and like, what’s the noble thing to do here, and then I think about my mum and how right she was. How we have to be seers, how we have to take a stand against the way things are. We’re all so vile.

  Vile?

People I mean. And then I look up, and I see my Godself telling me something. Like it’s unreal. Cause there’s this woman there and she’s got this kid with her in a pram. I mean, can you believe it. She’s out here shopping or doing some shit that’s contributing to this whole fucked up world with this innocent little kid she’s pushing in front of her, and I can see that she just doesn’t get it. She doesn’t even see how selfish she is bringing that poor little kid into this fucked up world, and then I think of my purpose and how that kid should not have to suffer in this shit of a world, and how he would be so much better off just not being and like, he wouldn’t even know to ask the question.

So I go up to the woman and I try to tell her all the things I’ve learned, about the bee and how I’m God and she is not listening, and she is not listening and I tell her she just needs to surrender, and surrender the kid because it’s just merciless, and cruel bringing him here. Only a miserable merciless human being would do that, and if she’d just let her Godself be in charge she would see it too.

But then she’s screaming and trying to get my hands off the kid and then I just get so fucking angry because she can’t see it and it’s all so clear, she just doesn’t understand what my Godself needs me to do, and that’s when I slug her. I mean really slug her in the face and then she falls back and I see my chance, so I take the kid’s blanket and I’m holding it over his face and he’s kicking and he’s screaming and he just needs to surrender and know that this is my Godself helping him, and then…

  That’s when we came.

Yeah, that’s when you guys showed up. And then, yeah, I guess I was on the ground and then you had me up in here and now I‘m telling you how things unfolded because that’s what you want to know, isn’t it, the truth? That it wasn’t really me. That I had to do it.

  Not you?

No. I mean it was me but it was my Godself. You know, like I said, I was in the state of being God. You get it? Like that bee.

You believe me, right?

Yes I will definitely sign that thing because that’s like, totally what happened. Okay?