“I want to do you,” she said.
“Why me,” he asked.
“You’re important. Meaningful. You can be impactful.”
“I’m also fun,” he sassed.
“And I can get you. But you’re not easy.”
“You have to work for me?” He asked.
“I have a lot to learn before I can figure you out,” she admitted.
“How do you know if I’m right?”
“I have no idea. I’m following my gut.”
“What does your gut have to do with me?”
“It knows things I don’t,” she said to Goal.
“When you achieve me one day, what then?”
“I’ll seek a new you.”
Three thousand six hundred seconds counted
Nine hundred breaths exhaled
Eighty-six distinct thoughts born
Fifty-three to dos remembered and then forgotten
Thirty-two full bellies inhaled
Twenty-five clothing rustles emitted
Nineteen dog barks interjected
Fifteen memories of childhood replayed
Fourteen friends reminisced
Thirteen burps stifled
Twelve back postures straightened
Eleven distant planes overheeard
Ten indiscretions forgiven
Nine total minutes of worry about how much longer remained
Eight cumulative minutes of utter mental stillness enjoyed
Seven flashes of white from retinal misfiring observed
Six questions answered
Five answers questioned
Four futures predicted
Three revelations grokked
Two knees numbed
One bell struck
Zero
The interface was so alien that its effect on her was physiological— she couldn’t look at it. Numbers and text fields mashed onto her retinas. She panicked.
“I won’t help you,” said Interface.
“Please?”
“The world didn’t explain itself to you when you were born. But here you are.”
“How did I learn back then,” she asked.
“You guessed.”
“What if I guessed wrong?”
“You failed. And tried again.”
“Didn’t that hurt?”
“You had no ego. Nothing could feel hurt.”
“How must I learn now?
“Let go. Of failing. And of knowing.“
“Isn’t the point of learning… to know?”
“No.”
She danced up the wall. It couldn’t be called climbing. Her body flowed up in ripples and curls, hands and feet seeing for themselves, gravity feebly whispering protests from the bottom of the cliff.
“But you’ve always loved me,” cringed gravity. “Or were you just tolerating me all along?”
She climbed on.
“We’ve had fun! I helped you slide down waves in summer and mountains in winter!”
She ascended.
“I kept you centered.”
She paused. “You kept me grounded too.”
She pulled herself over the final ledge. Sitting at the top, she looked down. And suddenly she started to float.
They headed west on auburn street over the mass ave bridge to go straight along the river with three trays of unbaked biscuits balanced tenderly on three happy laps and one tub of warm mushrooms saturated with simmered white wine and chicken broth nestled underneath heating the nether regions and swapping stories of moon cups and pregnancy tests and oven-roasted chestnuts until the gas gauge hits zero and they all spill out into the freezing air laughing and pushing the car and glowing under streetlights and they’ll get to friendsgiving somehow but right now they all know that they’re already there.
She placed her panic inside a pine cone, whispering a worry into each one of its fractal seeds. Then she held it against her heart.
“What if all of these things happen?” Asked the pine cone.
“I will be hurt,” she replied.
“Who will be hurt? ‘You’ exist only now.”
“But later will be my new now,” she said.
”Should I worry about being chopped down?” Asked the pine cone.
“How could you be chopped down, you aren’t a tree,” she retorted.
“Yet.”
She rolled her eyes and threw it deep into the woods. Pine cones thought they knew everything.
Another arrow missed. She threw the bow down in frustration.
“Breathe.”
“How will that help,” she seethed.
“The arrow is outside of you. The target is outside. The bow is outside. But the image of them that your eye creates… where is that?”
“Inside.” She tapped her temple reluctantly.
“Where do the muscle signals from your fingers, hands, and arms come together?”
“Inside.”
“Where do your hopes of hitting the target live?”
“Inside.”
“Where does your frustration come from?”
“Inside.”
“Where, really, is the bow and arrow and target?”
“Inside.”
“Then what must you gain control over?”
“Inside.”
“So breathe.”
“An angel,” she said.
“That’s not a job,” her teacher replied. “Be serious. What do you actually want to be when you grow up?”
She ordered her eyes not to cry, she told her feet not to run from the classroom, she made her heart untwist. An angel would have to bring peace to worse situations than this. She breathed. Training was hard, but she was harder.
“I want to be so deeply at peace with myself that I can give peace to others,” she said.
“So, a doctor?” Her teacher offered.
“Doctors fix bodies. I want to heal souls.”
Dust motes shimmered through the warehouse. The others stood in far corners. Then everything flickered and went black.
“Everyone still there?”
“Vision dark for me.”
“Standing by.”
A blinding dot lit in the room’s center. The dot split into a vast three dimensional grid. The whole area looked like an infinite mirror illusion.
She looked down. Her body was gone. A few dots collected where it should have been.
“Moving in.”
As she walked, dots sucked towards her like she had gravity. When she passed, they bounced back.
Her only form was the ripple of energy left in her wake.
“Hello!” She said, running past her teacher. He waved back with a friendly, “You’ve got quite a pace, I don’t want to slow you down. See you tomorrow.”
Red leaves adorned black branches against a fierce blue sky. Did it used to look this vivid?
She ran around the lake where she’d grown up. There were people everywhere. Out of curiosity she let the full user hoard enter her model, and millions of bodies popped in, overlapping each other. She dialed it back until just a few remained. Fall At Fresh Pond was a popular app this time of year.
Pilu flew through the air. She glanced at the ground speeding beneath her. Rocks and tufts of foliage came closer. She extended an arm towards the earth. Then she hit. Hard. And rolled.
“Oof,” she thought she heard the ground say, before she blacked out.
When she opened her eyes, she couldn’t see her body. She wasn’t invisible; her body simply looked like earth. Her limbs were made of dirt, and grass grew on her forearms. When she stood up, her torso became a tree trunk.
She laughed, and rivers poured from her ears, melting her feet into the soil.
Cudi’s first memory was of wanting.
She wanted milk.
Then she wanted warmth.
Then she wanted to poop.
And then she wanted milk again.
She received all the things she wanted, and so she survived.
One day she wanted to move, so she crawled then walked then ran across the earth.
The next day she wanted to build so she combined sticks and clay and water into simple creations.
She wanted love, so she hugged her parents and was hugged back.
And so she survived.
Wanting had kept her alive. But when would she have, and would she be, enough?
FSn = Ma / Mm * (1 – |A – B| / Mm) * C
Where:
FSn = Friendship Strength (now), value between 0 and 1.
Ma = Meetings between friends actually held in a given time
Mm = Maximum number of meetings possible in that time
A = Number of meetings person A wanted to have
B = Number of meetings person B wanted to have
C = Chemistry multiplier.
Chemistry (between 0 and 1) = shared stories * shared ideas * emotional state flexibility * gut affection * loyalty * communication style overlap * trust in conflict.
QED?
“I built you a home” said Seru.
“Here is where you can rest,” she said, catching an orange leaf floating down in the quiet breeze.
“Here is where you can create,” she said, moving over to the crucible with its fiery belly.
“Here is where you can laugh,” she said, opening a panel behind which a dozen friends gathered.
“Here is where you can cry,” she said, unfurling her woven dreams into a fluffy cocoon.
“And here is where you can learn to love yourself,” she said, opening her arms and wrapping him in an embrace, “as I love you.”
One day the sun made sounds.
It started as a low rumble, almost inaudible, when the predawn black softened into deep blues. Then clouds caught pink flares and a chorale note stretched across the sky.
At first it wasn’t clear where the sound was coming from. But when the brilliant burning orb peaked above the horizon and a hundred brass horns screamed triumphantly from the heavens, the source was undeniable.
By noon the glare roared like a colony of bees, petering into a breezy snore by mid afternoon.
Sunset’s red sliver sunk below the ocean with a satisfied, gentle fart.
“Give me your bag.”
Dio opened her eyes and looked up at the woman in front of her. Meditation could be interrupted in worse ways. She smiled.
“Please come eat dinner with me,” Dio said to the woman. “Are you hungry? I could eat a whale.”
Her assailant looked confused. “I said, give me your bag,” she repeated, drawing a blade.
Dio breathed serenely. “What is your name, my sister? I am Dio.”
A pause. “Bel.”
“Bel, will you join me for a meal? I would love to listen to your story.”
Bel swallowed. “I can’t.”
Dio nodded. “That’s alright.”
Once, Oshi was still.
Her body formed one vast, single drop of water stretching over the entire planet. She knew who she was and why, and felt content.
One day the sun appeared. Its energy shone onto Oshi, carving her into waves that split her into billions of droplets. Planets popped up to play with her. Then the moon arrived, dancing her into a tizzy.
Oshi relished the turmoil, interpreting her contrasts as the feeling of being alive.
But eventually her heart ached for peace. She summoned all her mass and commanded: Settle.
For a moment, all drops were one.
Inside of Nira’s heart rested a seed. Some days the seed was joyous and some days the seed was sorrowful.
Every morning when she woke up there was a precious moment when she forgot about the seed. But then she would remember, and listen for it, and know how her day would feel. She had no choice.
Today’s dawn stretched its tendrils into her shuttered eyes. As she blinked awake she felt her seed do something new. It rattled around. It was a lonely dance; more restless than excited.
“Whatever happens today, I don’t much mind.”
So she told herself.
Mum treaded water above the hole. “I won’t fit. Please. I’m sorry.”
Ro had never gone through. She swam down. She squeezed in. Rock scraped her back. She pushed until her lungs screamed. She was through. She kicked for the surface and gasped. Air in the cavern smelled of seaweed and her little brother’s hair. He peeped out from his sleeping bag.
“Luz, come home,” she said.
“You can’t tell me what to do any more.”
“We miss Dad too.”
Luz sniffled. “Is Mum ok?”
“I don’t know.”
Ro jumped into the water and swam back down to the hole.
Pico stared at the ceiling of her cave.
It’s all me.
Sandstone crags stretched into darkness. She slipped her perspective into her rock walls and looked down. Her tiny body walked towards the entrance, where her soft light filtered in. She slipped into those light rays and sped towards Tuwa, who knelt by a fire roasting wild yams.
Her flames licked warmth into her food, her sugars caramelized from her heat, and she slipped back into her original self.
She said to herself as Tuwa, I am now morning.
Slipping into his-her soundwaves she heard Tuwa say, yes we are.
I’m excited to disappoint you, Sora’ said.
Unlikely, Ea thought. Even impossible.
Ea began floating up to the cloud where Sora’ lived. The journey took a week, each day colder and drier than the last. On the sixth day a storm conjured lightning and Ea almost turned back. But she needed to know.
When Ea arrived, Sora’ wasn’t there, Sora was instead. Sora laughed the same way, but less often. Ea made herself at home in the uncanny clouds and wondered where Sora’ was. Who Sora’ was. What love was, if she’d fallen for a derivative of the full expression.
Pumpkin wasn’t the oldest or youngest child so she never got as much attention as she deserved. She was born in spring when the earth was still thawing. In summer she and her siblings rolled in the dirt, drank delicious sunlight, and got chubby.
When the leaves turned orange, someone took her. Cold hands gripped her body.
Was she a prisoner, or an adventurer? The prisoner felt fear: she knew she’d be disemboweled, carved and roasted. But the adventurer felt joy: she would glow brightly and taste sweet. Death would come even if she stayed: rotting, alone.
Pumpkin made a choice.
Porker was a house cat who had never lived in a house. One snowy day he found a cabin. The woman in the doorway wouldn’t let him inside.
Porker brought her an ermine. She smiled, but stood firm. He slept in the shed.
Weeks later, Porker heard a shout. The woman ran out and said, “Kill that mouse, and you can stay.”
Porker raced inside and ate the mouse. She piled pillows by the fire for him.
That night he tried following her upstairs. She blocked him. He returned to the fire to wait. Eventually a mouse would go upstairs.
I was sitting on the curb outside a freshmen dorm tallying the number of undergrads who biked by wearing helmets. Twenty-nine out of thirty zipped past with their heads unprotected. A survey I ran showed that half of them secretly wished they wore helmets. So why didn’t they do it? Psychology let me peer into our messy, beautiful human lives and test ways to make them better. Today I’m paid to meet people and weave videos from their stories. It’s very different work; yet my toolkit is the same one I developed watching students ride by with naked heads.
I was nervous.
You’d been in your mama’s belly for so long. I was walking down the hallway, wondering how to be with you, hold you, love you. I saw you, scooped you up. An unknown ventricle in my heart opened and a new flavor of love erupted through me.
When I woke up, Lara said I’d been laughing. I remembered the warm weight of you, so important and tiny. You saw wonder in my face. I saw the explosion of a timeless universe, which now had you in it.
I loved you in a dream, my daughter. One day.
It’s as simple and impossible as looking at light. Our eyes see light, but our brains see objects. If you can turn off your brain, and just see light, you’re halfway to being a great photographer.
Light is soft in the early morning. Its color changes throughout the day, from cool to warm, to cool again. It bathes faces and bounces around rooms. When you see only light, objects become shapes and blobs that move over each other. Roads become two-dimensional lines. Reflections appear in unlikely places.
Then you’re seeing like a camera. And then you can take a photo!
He emptied his business card holder into his desk bin and took out a tiny bottle of Jameson.
Two years, give or take an extra one month three days and five hours. He unscrewed the bitsy red cap and looked at the letter he’d just written, still warm from the printer.
What was next? Images of freedom and/or begging in the subway collided in his mind.
“You’re moving on?” Boss asked.
Pause.
“Congratulations, I’m happy for you!”
The butterflies landed and a thin hard shell seemed to evaporate off his back. Outside, the sky stretched wide. He should call Cheryl!
Dear Father,
You ask what will I do with my life? Oh man. I dunno. I want to rid Australia of tall poppy syndrome. I want to apply psych research to creating a more just society through campaigns and clever storytelling. I want to revolutionize our broken education system. I want to smack sense into our politics. I want to move to Australia at age 35 and be fulfilled with the work I do there, while swimming in the ocean every day too.
I want it all. And yet, I could die or get paralyzed at any instant.
Life’s insane!
Yes — it does look green.
It also looks cerulean and magenta and ultraviolet – it’s the entire god-heaven-universe soaring down onto you, YOU, just you, in an elegant blaze of soft glory and frenetic licking energy, it has pace rhythm slowness speed, staccato flashes and deep crescendos and — it looks like music sounds, when I think back and remember that night on the northwest fjords staring straight up into the 2am ether I hear a chorus and taste flavors and feel tingling because GOOD GOD it is so enveloping and sensual that your whole body reacts viscerally to those magestic swirls…
Punched in the sternum. Lightly bruised, subtly winded. Belly dropped, sunken. Tell yourself, Life is good. Believe it. It is. Was it better before?
Perhaps this vacuous sadness is merely the echo, the footprint of blinding permanence. We don’t believe anything is permanent, except life. Loss can’t be permanent. But silly child, you’ve got it all mixed up.
Some things are here now. But all things must go.
You can claw back and cling, anyone will understand. It won’t do, though. One cannot eat a memory.
Friends help. Love helps. Tomorrow this feeling will evolve into inspiration.
Onwards. Always.
And subtly tangled amongst this swarming, vicious, viscous sea of monstrous absurdity and violent sensuality was the very weirdest sight of them all: that the one most main-stream, pure, prudent emotion splurted from every act. Each tit-whipping, butt-wiping, smutt-liking, dick-pricking, mickey-humping, leash-dragging, clit-piercing, rub-taunting, hot-screaming interaction melted pain and sex together in the alchemist’s brutal cauldron; and there is dark magic and there is light magic and the difference is the spoon used to stir; and at folsom street that spoon was made of acceptance and truth and affection and love.
I am, said a young woman in a business suit. She peered down at us through nouvelle-chic glasses and raised an eyebrow.
You didn’t think a responsibility like that would be entrusted to anyone else, did you?
We didn’t.
Actually there have been many seven billionth persons, she continued. Last week one was born but the Syrian conflicts killed two hundred, bringing us back under. Hours later, a new seven billionth popped out. In Ecuador. A new war could set us back months. But it doesn’t really matter.
We stood, holding our popsicles, ignoring the juice running through our fingers.
With cheers they all smiled and hunkered down, comfortably cradling their hot cocoa or zealous masala chai. The room was warm with the heat of their eager bodies and a shy breeze brushed through the screen door.
Skin prickled.
“Who’s going to start?” asked Sarah, the most enterprising from day one.
“I will,” Matt offered after a tingling pause.
“Who with?”
Matt glimmered. “You?”
Sarah’s cheeks darkened like the crepuscule and her cool confidence wafted away. Silently she offered Matt her hand and he led her to the private room at the back, all the others’ eyes watching them, sparkling.
What exactly fits inside this familiar nugget?
Three months two days sixty-eight malaria pills fifty-nine gigabytes of six thousand photographs and a sliver of cloudy quartz nicked from the kenyan savana.
A sunny monday by a pool in which the water wiggles seductively.
A lost home whose temporality erased your mark and who flourishes on impossibly easily in your absence.
A crumbling redwood.
An opulent anemone wallowing in the salty shallows some meters under the fog.
A freedom, a plan, a sense of urgency, a delight in patience, more than a couple paradoxes and three melty squares of rich milk chocolate.
It begins with sunshine, of course. A bright, open, enveloping radiation, not the kind that causes birth defects or cancer but the kind that soothes and enlightens, rolls you up under its tongue, and nestles. It’s a chirpy day, with crisp air and something buzzing organically just too far away to pick out. And the sheets are warm, pillow cool, the window bright but not glary. And there’s a friend knocking on your door, with a smile and a donut, an old-fashioned chocolate buttermilk, and you laugh together and hug and look outside and marvel because this, this is Spring.
Give me one reason to stay here, and I’ll turn right back around. I see you standing there, looking at me with an muddled expression. Drizzle equal parts hurt and longing into a saucepan, add a pinch of coy and a sprinkle of fresh nerves, a dash of adrenaline and the spicy warmth of an almost kiss. Stir gently, let simmer. That’s you, in your torn blue jeans and well-worn allstars. That’s you in the corner of building A and building B, leaning against the wall. That’s you in my eyes. I’m walking away. But I don’t need to be.
One day there is a little girl named alice and she loved to go walking in the woods to see a friends the squirrels and the chipmunks. She ran into a line buff talkin woman of a certain menace. The woman holder if you have no money I must take your last night. the goal of course is too young to have money and so agreed. With hateful certainty the tall dark woman took her prize and vanished into the ether. The girl, not entirely hole anymore, returned home to a distraught mother and an ever absent father. The end.
Waiting and watching. I hear the sound of a door open and close and I wait and I watch the person who did it. I must not be seen for that is tactless. I wonder if there’s actually a good way to pass time in this fashion. The detective’s life is one of waiting not doing. Just like at the zoo you stand and you watch but unlike at the zoo it is you in the cage. Another subject rides past me. the sun feels nice on my face. A young man walks past me holding a brown cardboard box.
Other than that, not a great deal has happened since I woke up this morning. The meeting was easily rescheduled, the fire was smokey but contained.
Somewhere something more interesting was happening. As I walked away from my house wars were fought between bacteria in the soil underfoot. Chaotic ice clusters flung themselves around a blustery cumulonimbus overhead. Leaves leeched their last chlorophyl and lost their lingering color before making their only epic journey, a tumultuous free-fall back to their roots.
And inside my head past glimpses danced between future sparks, memories tangoed with goals, and the now came and went.
The only thing I know about this is he’s my friend, and I’m here for him. Beyond that, I’m clueless — what type of shoes, the texture of the track, the warm-up regiment, the pacing per lap, what it’ll mean if he doesn’t make it, what it’ll mean if he does.
I notice that he’s already started. No loud snap from a ceremonial cap gun, no roaring fans, just a “go” from his coach, and he’s catapulting around the red oval. Such effort, sacrifice, determination, drive, for this.
Five minutes later he’s back where he started, and so far from it.
I walked the familiar streets, the air was unexpectedly warm and I left my coat in the car. I found the first bookstore by accident. Pausing outside, wondered what to say, how to look like I’d done this before. The door jingled and that thick comfy scent of printed pages wafted but did nothing to settle the butterflies.
“I’m a local author, and was wondering if I could speak to the manager about carrying my book.”
The cashier smiled supportively. Neither of us said the obvious: if he carried it or not was irrelevant — no one bought books any more.
It was coming, so Drew paced hurriedly. He performed because he wanted to, he told himself. He forced down sparse bites because he knew he should. His stomach bounced around his ribcage and flew away. This was madness.
“You ready?” Charlie chirped walking by his open door.
Drew hesitated.
“Awesome I knew you would be, that’s what I want to hear!”
Drew laughed.
At the venue the lights dimmed, the music faded. The room was packed, beer and fried food hung in the air.
Drew breathed in, held the mike, and walked out. “So a guy walks into a bar…”
Sad faces look happiest when they hang from jungle-gyms upside-down.
The storm raged. Below deck, hammocks lashed violently, still smiling.
Sammy boi, those are my dentures. Creepy? Neh, they’re happy!
That handkerchief dances across my heart like your soft lips.
She slashes her glistening blade into his bruised, bloody face.
Kicking like morally neutered Orpheus, Percy quietly rode sidesaddle, toothless.
Pulled pork always gets stuck and she never flosses me!
“Kiss me.” “You don’t play around.” “I need you now.”
SUCK MY TONGUE AND BITE MY LIP TILL I SCREAM!
Jondor looked to the stars, frowning. Lightspeed wasn’t fast enough.
‘I took a rather tumbling route,’ he said with a dimple in his cheek. ‘I definitely don’t advise it.’
He held his fork rather carefully. He worked his dull butter knife through the piece of lamb, deliberately. He looked up. His cool-coloured eyes had a lighter ring around the pupil that made them seem to glow. ‘Anyway, that story took longer than I wanted it to. Enough about my past.’
I forked my risotto and organic green peas, and sipped warm water out of a cracked plastic cup. We talked, smiled, and ate. And gradually, effortlessly, he became a person.
“You’ll have your participants take a survey, I think”.
“What sort of survey?”
“Perhaps survey is the wrong word.”
“I see?”
“Pill. Pill was the word I was looking for.”
“I should have my participants take a pill? What kind?”
“A mild hallucinogenic laxative.”
“I apologise, Professor, but I’m not sure I follow…”
“Yes, it will work nicely. I hope. We’ll see.”
“I don’t think we will see! We’re not going to drug anyone!”
“I think we’ll drug someone. We already have.”
“We have? Your carpet is exquisite. Is it dancing slightly? My hands!”
“The bathroom is down the hall.”
Thick strudels of cold blickety cellulose. Stuck to the scrumptious walls. The thick, scrumptious walls. Andrea scrapes her pro-nails along the walls trying to get off the thick noodles. The noodles just got stuck in her nails and stayed on the walls, and now she’s stuck. She has nothing else but her teeth. Her TEETH! But it was so cold and icky and sloozey like morning slugs and uncooked sausages. This is no time to lose one’s head! BITE, Andrea! Bite! Gnawing away all these closures! And Spitting! Sputter! Blech! Run away, far away from these noodle-strudels! Cold and alone.
At five I awoke to a racing mind dreaming terrifyingly of computer code that sought my life. The entirety of my reality was left angle brackets and yellow fixed-width characters screaming around a black abyss. I couldn’t shake the panic so lay awake a while listening to my body, checking in with my toes and my joints, hearing my mind wander, and watching my closed eyes.
But goodness two hours have passed. What a strange pseudo-reality I’ve lived in since I left dreaming. I may be still dreaming. I wonder what asleep means when awake is so unbounded by perception.
Man that last class went way over I really shouldn’t have packed my schedule this tightly I hope they don’t cancel my appointment now just pedal harder I need to get back right now right now so pass this girl on the right pass this guy on the left wait YO STOP he veered into me I’m flying my bike’s crunching I hit pavement THWACK my head snaps down slams into the ground wow that was simple enough…
I get up. I’m a little cut, a little bruised. My helmet’s shattered. My head’s fine. I’m fine. I am still Wyatt.
I sit in this library, this bastion of studious solitude, and stare at notes. I bullet the points, I format the text, I mnemonic the concepts. But there’s a problem. Outside the library there is a rave. Hundreds if not thousands (or millions by the single sound of their collective screams) are freaking out and shaking booty. While I sit. Here.
I’m a starved desert wanderer who’s just chanced upon a vending machine resting idly atop a dune. I can see the cool drinks inside and can damn near taste them. But I haven’t a dollar.
The music wafts painfully.
Idiotic and numb-headed frilly bloatstreams of sticky, disgraceful blowflies sting like nettles. The smelly vomitous goats stampede as imbeciles in mindless, automatic circles, ignoring any reason and all direction, crashing a sorry excuse for a head first into each other and dumbly blindly tastelessly frolicking in their own horrific putrescence. Oh what a scene. I could die. I will die. I want to remove significant portions of my brain simply so that I won’t have to interpret the absurdity, the precarious chaos uncoordinatedly flinging its filthy self around me. Dear lord, you aren’t present here. This damned bug won’t die.
All of 100 