An atrocious penalty for a radical pacifist. How many times had I not suffered all the qualms of hell listening to this command from where I used to live in the Old Town in Stockholm, right next to the castle. During each changing of the guard, a solider in the bailey of the castle will shout: “igevääääääääääääär!” (present arms) This happens twelve times a day in the summer.
So, I had been sentenced to shout i gevär in eternity. I will admit that during the first years, I performed this command quite half-heartedly . Indeed, in a hesitant, often quite sad voice. At one point, when my holler resounded even more sad than usual, General Bussig approached me yelling: “Hodell is crying like a faint maiden! Act like a soldier dammit! Use your vocal resources! This is how it should sound: iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii…” At this point he interrupted himself. A couple of pointy i’s had gotten stuck in his throat. He began to cough violently. That’s when I had an idea. I figured that if I shouted i gevär and kept on going at the vowels i and ä as long as I could without pausing to breathe, the semantic content of the exclamation would dissolve. It would extinguish itself! I confided my idea to an old Zen master. He immediately hit my head with a butt of a rifle and exclaimed “Satori!”. Then he said: “If you succeed in this, the exclamation: i gevär can be transformed into a remarkable mystic musical experience and …” – “Really?” I interrupted surprised, “it can?” The Zen master continued: “If you prolong one and the same note infinitely it will no longer be the same note that you hear. The note will be transformed into another note, which in its turn will get transformed into another. Kimi hi take.”