Yes, I was that kind of a kid. A kid who would wait eagerly for a special occasion, maybe Eid or Pohela Boisakh, or the international trade fair, wanting so hard for my mother to buy the most coveted and prized possession any 8-year-old could ask for, my own AQE 47 (plastic, of course).

I was an unashamed “khet”, wielding my weapon at whoever I wished to intimidate. A superhero who didn’t need superhuman strength, for I wielded the masterful plastic beads, beads which, when fired, would hurt people. That was enough to make my contemporaries fear me, respect me, and maybe treat me as a superior.

And that is all I wanted to be, superior. Some weak-minded psychiatrist may diagnose my condition as having a superiority complex, but I don’t think there’s any complexity involved when it comes to realising why I am SUPERIOR.

I hold in my hand a gun, a symbol of power, which my MOM bought, she herself a symbol of the holy matriarchy, a matriarchy that feeds fast food to her fat kids, a matriarchy who slaps, smashes, and beats her child, a matriarchy who buys stuff just so her annoying children shut up.

I hold in my hand a gun, a gun which my mom bought from the money she took from my dad. A dad who doesn’t care what is being bought with his “hard-earned” cash. A dad, so ever absent while sitting right beside me. A dad who couldn’t care less, and if he could, he would.

I hold in my hand a gun. A hand that also picks buggers from my nose, a hand that scratches my nether regions and smells the godawful fragrance. A hand that hasn’t touched the surface of a soap or handwash since it last went to the loo, a hand that wholeheartedly accepts the fast food as well as aforementioned buggers and transports it to my face cavity.

I, the ever-so-privileged, cannot express the level of joy I feel while wielding that plastic AQE 47. This AQE 47 represents everything that I wish to be and have become. A hollow, empty shell which spits out nonsense that adds no value to society.

The AQE also represents my own insecurities, for I so wish that people would fear me similarly to how they fear the AQE, and I too wish for a REAL AQE, but I know just as the phoney I turned out to be, the plastic one would have to do for now.

I, in my pursuit of realising my dreams, am not alone. I, along with my friends, imagine myself playing a hero. Who does everything for everyone, tells that he is doing everything for everyone, but somehow still he craves that everyone would just pay the same appreciation they do to the Khans and the Devgans.

However, the Khans and Devgans at least have some talent, I realise I don’t. But I am not one to sit and complain. That is why I crave plastic guns. The plastic that represents everything I am. The plastic that fills every gap I possess with the same material I am full of, unadulterated processed faecal matter.