“A thousand percent.”

This is a difficult post to write.

I had a conversation earlier today with someone. I cannot and will not reveal who, but it is someone for whom I have cared immensely for, and long ago essentially raised as if he were my own sibling. It’s difficult because I have to call it out. Notice I’m not including pronoun or gender references of any sort, so you will not be able to determine his identity. It’s not the who that’s important; it’s the what. So moving forward I will refer to this person as DJ.

This is The What.

I called DJ earlier and it was great to hear his voice.

A rendition of DJ from 2020. I have taken great care to blur, scrawl on, and completely disguise their identity while also giving a general flavor of the individual I’m writing about. I am four hundred percent confident this would pass the Edward Snowden Anonymizing Anti-Surveilling Test (ESAAST).

What are you working on?
I asked.

Mixing tracks for the Americana project I’ve got going, he said.

Cool, I said. And we spoke of music briefly; as that is the career DJ has found success in. Long ago he was involved in the smoothie-making and knife businesses, but he long since moved on.

We segued to movies and films as it poured outside, and this is where things get a little hazy, but despite them getting hazy, please know that my recollection of them is very close to completely accurate.

I asked him about the percentage chances of something happening - it does not matter what - and he said - I kid you not - DJ said: “I’d say the percentage of [this thing] happening is at least a thousand percent.”

“I’d say the percentage of [this thing] happening is at least a thousand percent.”

Did you just say that the chances of this thing happening are a thousand percent? I asked.

What makes you think I would say that? he asked.
I would not say that.

But you did say that. I said truthfully.

Nah, he said flippantly, defiantly. Now you’re just making things up and putting words in my mouth.

I might be wrong, I said graciously and inaccurately. But I don’t think I am. I would peg the chances at 99% that you just said “a thousand percent.” And there’s no such thing as a thousand percent. There is literally no such thing.

Well, he said, I’m not saying I said that, but if I did say that, then you might think of it this way: a thousand percent is a metaphor for a hundred percent.

“A thousand percent is a metaphor for a hundred percent.”

This is what DJ said.

My mind is spinning. I said honestly. I’m trying to process that idea. “A thousand percent is a metaphor for a hundred percent.” It’s like a mobius loop of a metaphor that makes no sense yet makes total sense. I’m very frustrated because it’s like a quantum analogy that both works and does not work.

Yes. he said, or something of the sort.

We continued speaking of the movie Run, of the show The Last of Us, and the book The Cabin at the End of the Road, but at the back of my minds I was circling his logic, trying to ascertain if his statement came from a place of brilliance or lunacy. I decided to catch him off guard:

So this Paul Tremblay book, I said casually, it’s pretty dark, and I’m not sure about the Shyamalan adaptation. I haven’t seen it, but I’m about four hundred percent sure I will, so you know -

- did you just stay ‘four hundred percent?’ DJ interrupted me violently over the phone.

No, I said immediately. Of course I didn’t.

I,
he announced triumphantly,
am a thousand percent certain that you just did. If there’s no such thing as a thousand percent, then there’s no such thing as four hundred percent.

I know, I admitted. I was trying to entrap you. Anything beyond one hundred percent is ridiculous 97% of the time, unless you’re dealing with taxes or depreciation or something.

You can’t say four hundred percent,
he cautioned me.
It’s not the same as a thousand percent. A thousand percent is a metaphor for a hundred percent.

I know. I said. I didn’t know before. But I know now.

But now I don’t know. I knew at the now then that I knew. But later, later now, I don’t know, I’m thinking what I knew doesn’t match up with what I’m knowing now. I’m not certain. If you can make something that’s ten times greater than something simply be a metaphor for that something, then it’s very much like saying that x + 1 = 1, and x is not zero. That is to say, it can’t work, but yet, is it mathematically possible to prove that it’s impossible? That’s what I thought I knew, but don’t know now, and it’s scary. The uncertainty is really scary.

I started the afternoon full of bravery and bravado and confidence, and now the reality around me is shattered.

There’s only one person to blame for the downhill entropic slide my day is on, and that person is DJ.

I know that with thousand percent certainty.