Colonel Paranoiavich's Conspiracy theories.

THE aliens who had abducted me had shown me the future! The end is nigh!' And you point your finger at that kooky hobo of a preacher and pass a comment to your friend that roughly indicates that the guy has lost it. The world is full of crazy people they say, and you nod your head to that familiar tune and tell yourself that everything is all figured out.

You've got the scientists telling you how the planets go around the solar system, how pyramids were made by men and why monkeys are our intellectual inferiors. Yes, whatever that comes out of the mouth of them wrinkled skinned, bleary four eyed “phd” holders is the truth. Why? Well because they have been to one of them fancy colleges, spent years reading off dead trees, and wear fancy ultra white lab coats. Weirdly your habits sound familiar. How? Well ever since men started living in the first villages, they listened to their shamans and believed in the load of crap they delivered. Why? Well one thing is for sure, other than having 'logical' explanations for stuff and pulling off wild dance moves that turn the ladies on, they had the craziest of them bushes covering his private parts.

See the similarity? People had people who they thought were better than them explain everything for them, and in the process nurtured themselves into a sense of false security that has forever shackled them from the freedom of liberated judgment. Face it, the so called “authorities” have pulled so many rabbits out of humanity's hat that the count reaches infinity times a million. If you are the weak slob who needs mommy to tell you that everything is going to be all right, well then stop reading this Thursday's paper's awesome supplement. If you are one of the few who is willing to fight the battle of liberating your grey-matter, well then the truth is here. But before you dive into the ugly, smouldering, bubbling stink of a cesspool that is the truth, be warned that it's not going to be pretty. It never is.

Global warming is a myth. Don't go wow. Close your mouth, wipe that dumbstruck look off the ugly that you call your face and suck it up. Global warming is as big of a myth as Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and men walking on the moon (Yeah... as if that ever happened). 'Now why would 'they' make up such a big lie?' asks your friend, 'They have no reason to do so.' Well, guess what they don't have a reason not to. Better yet, they have all the reasons that come up with such a preposterous lie. We all know that our oriental comrades have an economy that's souring up higher and faster than the little people that make up their community. This makes the “freedom” lovers so upset that they have to come up with something farfetched to scare off and slow down our oriental comrades. So global warming is the perfect hoax. Stop “polluting” and slow down the consumption of the apparently “non-renewable” resources, so that your production decreases and it makes the whole situation easy enough for our “liberator” friends to stay on top of the food chain. They thought they were smart but some of us just cannot be fooled. So if the whole thing is a sham, why is the temperature going up around the globe? A brilliant and exuberant M. Adnan Kabir points the light after inhaling the aroma of the sweet flowers and plants of mother earth, 'The world is only getting hotter because of the absence of the cold war!'

Much of the common “theories” “they” tell you are meant to bind you into thinking with constraints. Although most of what those “sea-splitters” tells you seems to sound true, never be afraid to think outside the box. However, always be afraid to speak your opinions publicly for “they” shall abduct you at their convenience. And remember, “zey” are alvays vawtching you, so nevear look up at za bare sky. (Satellites orbiting the planet can snap photographs of you!)

Disclaimer: These paranoid rants are merely the product of sleep deprivation, and meant to be laughed at, not taken seriously. Rising Stars does not endorse the views of this writer.

By Colonel Skepticski Paranoiavich

The Cockroach and Me:
Why My Grandpa's Red Underwear Had Holes In Them

O I've waited so long for this moment, so long for you to come crawling back to me. You have given me night after sleepless night, the tip-toes of your feet ticking against the insides of my brain, and the constant wrath you showed as you went through the fabric, annihilating those pieces of cotton like the cruel beast that you are. I can't help but retch, thinking of your filthy scales on them, on that imported material all the way from Ulaanbataar, from that Romanian/Mongolian woman that Pa also received his seventh kiss from. You have become my nemesis over the past five days and three quarters, but it is true that I have come to admire you, and every deceitfully cunning move you make. Oh, my brother in battle, I will conquer you and the constant tick-tick-tick of your existence on my otherwise spotless kitchen floor. I will conquer you.

Rising Aerosol spray prices have aided in your escape so far. I've had to give Pa medicine for the sunburnt spots etched across his behind. I've told him not to sunbathe in his underwear so many times, but that stubborn old fool with his senility and elixir of pseudointeresting wisdom does not care to listen. I was in a dilemma: destroy you or buy butt lotion with the money I already had? I settled on the latter; I was able to convince him to skip a few days of gawking at single Grannies at the beach in exchange for letting him watch Full House reruns.

You're proud of yourself, aren't you? His excuse for a spine doesn't allow him to reach back so yes, I've had to rub the cream on to the soft bony flesh that encapsulates his behind. You're laughing in your little maggoty corner, you cruel son of a dog. You will pay.

Today is a good day, a day of victory. All those hours spent delivering pregnant cows at the farm in Savar has paid off; I received my paycheck today. Who's laughing now? As soon as I got out of there, first stop: Agora. Yes, I had to get some chicken nuggets and salami slices too. I don't have time to cook unlike you, you who steal the produce of the hard-worker, the butt-rubber, the pregnant-cow-deliverer. You will meet your end today, my brother, just come to me.

The lengths I had to go to, to prepare for this momentous day. It's not an easy task to go into a tailor shop and tell them to fix the holes in a pair of saggy, stained, red underwear. You think it's funny? The humiliation, the sheer repugnance of the tailor as he uses tongs to lift it up and glares at me with eyes that burn my soul! He even charged me quadruple the usual rate, delaying my elaborate plan to capture you further still not to mention my hopes of buying a new Katrina Kaif poster. But my hate for you gives me strength, the drive to bear through these bouts of piercing judgmental eyes which resonate gleaming red briefs.

The trap is set, my dear, you'll be coming soon, I know. I can feel the whirring of your antennae in the air, the kich-kich of the slit that you call a mouth as it feeds on the wastes of human life. You may wonder why I had to fix the pair instead of buying a new one, saving time and money. Firstly, Pa refuses to tell me where he got it, saying he'd feel jealous if I bought myself a pair, says it works miracles with the ladies at the nursing home and didn't want any new competition. I couldn't just get any pair; it had to be the one of blazing red, MachoMann its label and a dotted green orangutan sketch on the left cheek. And secondly, I'm not a fool. Ha! I know you have a certain attraction towards this exact pair and any other wouldn't have lured you into the chest of drawers near Pa's ventriloquist dummy collection. I come fully prepared, my love.

What awaits you: a rat trap with a piece of the red underwear stuck to a flake of rotting cabbage leaf, a hair-thin wire which is programmed to trip only at the feet of an insect of your evolutionary build a broom that will whack you beyond existence and finally, the pair itself, doused in, what is now, the sweet aroma of Aerosol and chalked with the finest insect killer money can buy. Fool proof, surely? Pride has never been a companion of mine but now, more than I've ever experienced, it comes and embraces me in its vengeful arms.

Oh, my precious! There you are! My heart beats in anticipation, vigorously oscillates to pump my excitement-filled brain with blood. Tick-tick-kich-kich-kich! I can hear you, I can see you. Oh, this world is indeed a place to be appreciated. Happiness does exist, mon chérie. You approach the rat trap, but you skedaddle past it. Ah, well, I am not disappointed; I have too many things I can fall back on. Oh, at the string now I see! Trips and…alas! You are quite fast, I must admit; the broom has missed you. No worries, the final step is one you cannot escape. You are near the chest, about to climb up. Oh, climb, dear, climb. You are at the slit in the drawer, about to go in. I am elated beyond imagination, I wish I could tell you. But this enjoyment shall remain a solo exhibition, unfortunately. You are mine now.

A palm; thwack; thooey. My grandpa looks at the peak of my ambition splattered across his hand and curses in Bengali. Spits into his hand again and rubs it against the edge of the drawer it was almost in through. I bend my head down on the floor. Everything is lost now, everything. I have failed. So has my purpose.

“You really should deal with the cockroaches around here,” he grunts, walking away, farting shutki bombs into the night.

By S. N. Rasul