The Hobby

A man tries to persuade his friend into accompanying him for this mysterious "hobby" of his.

“C’mon man, just one time. It’ll be fun.”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t. I have too much to do today.”

“Like what?”

I took a deep breath and stayed silent. I didn’t answer because I couldn’t think of an excuse �" I had nothing to do the whole day.

“How about this. If at any point you feel too uncomfortable, you can just leave,” he said with a wink that was more devious than reassuring.

For a whole week, he had been trying to convince me to come with him to be his accomplice for a new hobby of his. He never even told me what the hobby was. He just said that it was “metamorphic” and “life-changing”. There was this certain type of euphoric quality in his eyes whenever he talked about this hobby of his. The look of pure awe on his face made me imagine that he was Adam when he took a bite from the forbidden fruit. Except, instead of feeling ashamed, he basked in the revelation and savored every moment as he was being exposed to the knowledge of the universe that would have been incomprehensible to him only a few seconds ago. He didn’t care if God was right there watching him because he felt like a god himself. If God would have asked him what he just did he would unsarcastically narrate in full detail how he grasped the fruit, inhaled its aroma, and took a bite from it without any hesitation. “It tasted f*****g good,” he would say to God. His unwavering eyes would be looking straight at God, trying to make eye contact as if he were asserting who the more superior being was without a care, without any shame. I’ve always wondered what that feeling was like. “It’s almost orgasmic,” he said to try to entice me. “It makes you feel transcendent.”

“I’ll go if you tell me what it is we’re doing exactly,” I finally said after my curiosity (and his infuriating insistence) got the better of me.

He gave me that signature skeevy smile of his. No teeth showing, both ends of his mouth almost touching his ears, and a stare that was as close as you could get to sinister. It was a smile that would have the devil second guessing.

“If I tell you, it’ll take all the excitement out of it. C’mon man, it’s just a hobby. Nothing to worry about.”

He kept calling it a hobby as if it were just like going out to play ball with your friends or staying up all night to play video games. But I was so skeptical because what kind of a f*****g hobby makes you feel orgasmic and transcendent?

“Is it drugs?” I suddenly asked �" it was the only logical explanation.

He started laughing like a crackhead.

“No, it’s not,” he said while wiping tears off his eyes.

“Okay, I’ll go.”

His reaction was that of a kid that just got a new pet for his birthday present.

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah. I’m down to try it out.”

---

He parked the car inside the lot of some abandoned factory building. I was sleeping in the passenger’s seat the whole way there, so he had to wake me up. It was nighttime and there were no lights. I could barely see anything.

“Here we are,” he said before unbuckling his seatbelt and turning off the car engine.

“Dude. This is looking really sketchy right now,” I said already regretting my decision to come here.

“Don’t worry. We’ll be fine. Just follow my lead.”

“I’m not stepping out of this car.”

“You already grew some balls to say yes and took the time to come here. Why p***y out now?”

“Because I wasn’t expecting to go to the set of Texas Chainsaw Massacre in the middle of the night for this hobby of yours.”

Ten seconds of silence passed by. He was just staring at the windshield and didn’t even look back at me.

“Well, I’m already here, so I’m not going to waste my time to drive you back home before I have my fun. Whether or not you come with me is up to you. If you really don’t wanna go, you can just walk home.”

“But I don’t even know where I am! How the f**k do you expect me to get home? At least let me drive your car home. I’ll just come back to pick you up when you’re done.”

“Sorry, but I’m taking my keys with me. Anyway, this conversation’s not going anywhere. I’m out,” he said as he took the car keys, opened the car door, and stepped out, leaving me alone inside.

He went to the back of the car to get something from the trunk and walked towards the abandoned factory. I watched him walk away briskly until I lost sight of him in the darkness.

“This guy is such a f*****g a*****e,” I said to myself.

I tried just waiting it out until he finished with whatever it was he did there, but the anxiety I was getting from being stuck within the darkness inside a car in the middle of nowhere with no lights or no one to go to was too overwhelming for me. I decided to just get out of the car and try to find him.

This antic of his had me fuming, but I was so used to being exasperated with him that it seemed like such a normal situation for me at that point. I kept telling myself that I was going to kill the guy or take revenge on him after this was all over, but deep inside I knew that at the end of the day I would just let things go and move on. Being angry at a guy like that is pointless because he simply doesn’t care about what people think of him. Every time I would come at him raging he would always keep a calm demeanor and find a way to make me feel like I was the a*****e.

After I got out of the car, I tried looking around for signs or landmarks to get an idea of where we were, but I had no luck. I started to walk towards the abandoned factory. The air was chilly, and the factory had this eerie atmosphere around it. I wasn’t scared at all because I was busy being too pissed at him.

I made it to the front of the factory and there he was sitting by the steps with a leather duffel bag, which was probably what he took from the trunk, sitting by his side. He had that skeevy smile again.

“Were you really just waiting for me the whole time?”

“Yep!”

“And how long were you planning to wait?”

“As long as it took.”

I let out a sigh. “Alright, let’s just get this over with.”

“Follow me.”

We walked inside the factory, it had no gate or anything to stop people from going in, and inside it was just one whole empty open area. I followed him inside until he stopped by one of the pillars, looking upwards. He dropped his bag to the floor.

“What’s inside the bag?”

“Oh, it’s B.Y.O.B.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Bring your own bat.”

He zipped the bag open to bring out two wooden baseball bats. He tossed one to me and I caught it.

“You just shout the password, then they drop one down. Remember, you only get one swing each time, so you better start practicing your swing now to make sure you get a good one in every time,” he said with an incredibly straight face like he wasn’t sounding like a crazy person.

“Who’s they? And what are they dropping down?”

“You’ll see.”

He took one deep breath.

“GAN-BEEDEN!”

A shadowy figure appeared on the third floor by the rails. It was dark, so I couldn’t get a good look at it. The figure seemed to be carrying something on its shoulders. I heard the sound of chains before something dropped down from the third floor right by the pillar we were standing next to. Its top portion was tied by a chain to the third floor, the body was covered with black electrical tape. It was only when I looked at its bottom part that I realized what it was. It turned out that the top portion was actually the feet, tied by the ankles with a chain, and the bottom part was the face �" the eyes were blindfolded, and the mouth was also covered with electrical tape. My knees gave up on me, then I dropped my bat and stumbled to the floor the moment I realized what it really was. It was a person.

“Dude, what the hell! Are you crazy?”

He didn’t even pay attention to me before he took a swing. He hit him right at the head. There was a loud thump that sounded exactly what it looked like: a human head getting thrashed by something solid and a skull cracking. The person’s blood splattered all over me. I could feel the liquid dripping down my cheeks and forehead. My body basically went numb and all I could hear and feel was the loud beating of my heart against my chest. I threw up on the floor.

After a few seconds, the body was vigorously hauled up back to the third floor. It was so fast, that it all happened in a blur. I wasn’t sure if the person was still alive when he was dropped down, but after that hit, I was pretty sure that he was a goner.

“Your turn,” he said so nonchalantly.

“No. No, no, no, no, no. I’m not doing this. You’re not going to make me do this.” I was crying. I was scared. I didn’t know what to do.

“Do you know why you still choose to be friends with me?” he asked, this time looking me right in the eyes.

“What?”

“It’s because in your heart you want to be just like me. I’m exactly the person you aspire to be. By hanging out with me, you thought that you would learn how to stop caring about the circumstances of the actions you want to take. All you want is total liberation from the pressure of expectations from other people. You think this is the key to being content.”

“What are you saying?” I asked still sobbing and miserable.

“You wanna be free? This is your chance. Take the biggest swing of your life and change the course of your fate. Here,” he said as he reached into his pocket to bring something out. “For your first time, wear a blindfold. Not seeing whoever it is you’re hitting removes the feeling of guilt. Once you remove you’re blindfold, you won’t care anymore because you’d have already hit a turning point. Once you reach that feeling, there’s no more going back to the dull constructs of our social world. You’ll be free.”

He reached out his hand to me. Not knowing what else to do, I grabbed his hand as he helped me stand up.

“Stand right here and put on your blindfold, it’ll stop you from pussying out again. You’re gonna need this too,” he said as he picked up my bat from the floor and gave it to me. “I don’t want to pressure you with my presence, so I’ll leave you here until you’re done. Don’t worry, I’ll just be outside, waiting by the car. Try taking deep breaths for about five minutes or more, however long you think you need. When you’re ready, just shout the password, it’s the one I shouted a while ago, you remember? It’s gan-beeden. Gan. Beeeee. Den. Then they’ll drop the body. His head will be dropped at head level for you, so just swing head level. Alright, that’s it. You got this man,” he said as he patted me on the shoulder.

“I’m going to kill you,” I said with an unusual confidence �" that was probably the only time I ever meant it when I said that.

“I’m sure you will,” he said before I heard him walking away.

At that point, my fear and weeping were overlapped by rage and conviction. Why was I suddenly so angry? Was it because of being forced to be put in such a stressful position by that son of a b***h? Or was it because I knew that everything he said was right?

I took a few minutes of taking deep breaths to regain composure as he suggested. After about three or four minutes, I was ready. I put on my blindfold and prepared for the inevitable.

“GAN-BEEDEN!”

I waited for a few seconds, but I heard no sound. I shouted again. “GAN-BEEDEN!”

Finally, I heard the sound of chains. I heard a heavy sound and the whistle of the wind as something was dropped from somewhere above. I heard the sound of the chain stopping the object in front of me from dropping straight to the floor. I felt the presence of the figure in front of me. I could even feel his breathing. I knew that the man in front of me was still alive. But I already made up my mind. I was going to swing for it as hard as I possibly could no matter what.

I set my feet, gripped on my bat with both hands, positioned myself to hit as hard as I possibly could.

3.

2.

1.

Swoosh. THUMP!

It made the same sound as the other guy who got his head busted a while ago. I guess that was a home run. I felt the blood splatter in my face again, but this time, I welcomed the feeling of the liquid pouring down my face. My heart was beating as hard as it ever had against my chest, but it wasn’t nervousness or anxiety that I was feeling, it was excitement. I felt like a completely new being. Before I knew it, I was smiling. It was probably my only genuine smile ever at that point in my life. It was sinister, but it was pure. It was a smile that would have the devil second guessing.

I heard groaning from someone in front of me. I took my blindfold off. There he was, hanging upside down with chains tied unto his ankles. His body was covered with electrical tape, but unlike the other guy, his face wasn’t covered with tape at all. There was a huge purplish bruise and a noticeable dent at the side of his head. His mouth was also open, so I could see blood pouring from there down unto his eyes and forehead, and that he was missing some teeth. It took me a while of gazing at his face before I realized that I knew who the guy was. It was him.

“You did it, man. You actually f*****g did it,” he gasped while trying to maintain a smile.

Even with a messed-up face he still managed to pull off that smile of his. All the blood and his disfigured face actually made his smile more grotesque than it already was. Was I shocked? Yes. But did I feel any guilt? No.

After a few seconds, he was hauled up, and that was the last time I ever saw that smile of his.