USS Colorado lurking around a beach near you!

The United States Navy’s Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine USS Colorado was in the south-west waters of Sri Lanka, last week, the Conspiracy Desk reliably learns. The super-sub armed with 14 long-range ballistic missiles had orders to fire on Pakistan but its captain Marcus Chaplin defied, instead seeking authentication from Washington, resulting in a stand-off, triggering a massive hunt for the super sub.

The renegade boat, according to a large audience of witnesses, took cover in a remote island in the Indian Ocean even as two nuclear missiles were fired into Pakistan from another US vessel. Ironically, the nuclear holocaust has been swept under the carpet. It is not clear if the US President is enmeshed in the mercurial saga or if some of his key defence officials may have been part of a larger conspiracy on the eve of US Presidential elections. The Conspiracy Desk is in possession of a video recording of the mid-sea drama classified under the code name: Last Resort.

They say coming colours no good but Doomsday is still about five weeks away; so checked with a lady friend of Mayan repute if the ancient scholars mixed up the date or if 21 December was still the D-day.

Called President Obama to congratulate him on his re-election and the operator at the West Wing wanted to know how I knew him. I told her that we were brothers from two continents and she apologised for the delay before connecting the call.

I asked President Obama if he would go a little easy on Sri Lanka this time around and he said that he needed to consult the women who tell him what to do. It’s baffling how few women could wield so much power over foreign policy and how Sri Lanka has dexterously inflamed all of them. For now I thought I’d let President Obama savour the spoils of victory; he’s a man on cloud nine!

Come to think of it, what on earth is a cloud nine? Incidentally, clouds are classified according to their altitude, with nine being the highest. If someone is said to be on cloud nine, that person is floating well above worldly cares. Had the cricketing gods been kind on that infamous T20 World Cup final, most of us islanders could have had the subtile chance to experience what that just means.

Now you can start counting the clouds. But first, let me see if you got that right. If President Mahinda Rajapaksa & Co. were on cloud nine, which cloud is Leading Opponent Ranil Wickremesinghe on? And where are we? Usually November is a bad time to be under any cloud except on top of the nine.

Folks, remember it’s the Budget time? That’s when bad tithes rain down on us lesser souls. Mercifully, we are now spared from the full monty in one ghastly exposé, instead it comes down as scattered showers over a couple of months.

Rain begets traffic and traffic begets cops. In a surprising move the Police Dept. just announced that signal lights have won a protracted war with traffic cops, with the latter pulled out from the vicinity of signal lights. What happens now is anybody’s guess, even though motorists have long blamed cops for traffic jams. I have a sneaky feeling that we’d soon have to beg them back.

For now I think I’ll go count the clouds.

(Dinesh Watawana is a former foreign correspondent and military analyst. He is a brand consultant and heads The 7th Frontier, an integrated communications agency which masterminded the globally-acclaimed eco tourism hotspot KumbukRiver. Email him at [email protected].)