Mine goes to eleven.

Here’s the first chapter of my new book ”Let’s get gorgeous”:

In a dark, draughty kitchen in the west wing of Rudboda manor house, a stone’s throw from Kyrkviken in Lidingö, inventor Peter Camitz sat on a chair starring at a birthday present he got from his mother over twenty years ago.

Neither the picture of the soaring gulls against the bright blue sky, the distant sound of the children’s excited screams as they jumped for joy through the ice-cold sprinklers, nor the chugging of the boats’ motors on their trip out to one of the thirty-two thousand islands, islets and rocks that form the unique Stockholm archipelago, could move a hair on his neck. None of these impressions had a glimmer of a chance of breaking into his wing alongside the huge 19th century house. Not even the tiniest fragment of this magnificent summer’s day could get his attention as he sat on his chair daydreaming about storms, hailstone and rumbling thunder.

Peter Camitz is one of a kind, to such an extent that society cannot decide whether to push him away or embrace him. The curriculum of his school years was far too narrow to cover the extent of his personality. The problem with Peter was his unusually high IQ; probably triggered by developing the ability to read att such an early age. A popular belief in the fifties was that children could be inattentive in later years if they learnt things too quickly and in the wrong order. And so the six-year old excentric had to sneak around and read the bible on the sly for fear of getting caught by his mother.

It was not too surprising then that the case of the young oddball, Camitz, was discussed keenly in the staff room during his schooling. Some found it hard to swallow that he showed fleeting glances of being a real genius, while at other times he reminded them of a retarded jerk. Rarely was he anything in between.

For the most part he felt like a fool.

Nowadays, Peter finds it hard to fit smoothly into the framework that society assumes to be normal. He is presumably too intelligent, too curious and altogether too inquisitive. But just like most other people, he is franticly keen to conform to the norm, or, should we say: he wishes that normality could accommodate the likes of him, no questions asked. As he already knows, the only real chance there is of pacifying the body of society is to achieve success in the way that success is usually defined.

In other words, superficial success.

In the sense of status.

In the superficial world money goes hand in hand with prestige; Peter has often been blessed in this area, but it hasn’t really made him happy. Eccentricity has a price to pay as you can’t proclaim to have a rich inner life and expect to be appreciated and respected for it.

So now Peter yearned, like so many of his professional colleagues, for the big break that would, in one fell swoop, change everything for the better. It wasn’t so much that he needed to be richer or happier than at present– his creative life gave him kicks on a daily basis – it was just that somewhere deep inside he longed to be respected and accepted in some way, as an inventor, a person and a member of society.

But up to now. the person sitting in the chair was, in many respects, an outsider.

What the hell do I need a Soda Stream for? (A Soda Stream mixes carbon dioxide with water to make it fizzy.) He asked himself as he sat in the shade. Not because he didn’t appreciate his mother’s present, but because he never drank soda. He was a grown man for God’s sake! He drinks vodka.

The hours flew by. Peter loved to sit and chew the cud over problems, looking for solutions. He never watched TV or listened to the radio, as it destroyed his thoughts. The only thing he had was himself and his ideas– and a Soda Stream, of course.

Vodka is 60 per cent water, he thought. And carbon dioxide attaches to water.

Hm…

What would happen if I poured vodka in there…?

Suddenly he stood up, riped the top of a bottle of vodka and filled the Soda Stream with the contents. He pressed the button and out of the machine came sparkling vodka. With his trusted hand he took a glass, poured the vodka and knocked back his maiden shot.

It tasted great.

He poured himself another shot, washed it down just as fast as the first, realising that this sparkling vodka was very easy to drink. I’ll be buggered, this could be bottled and sold, he thought.

He took one more snifter and thought goddamn, that’s it, the idea he had been waiting for all his life!

After a few deep breaths he took another nip and then it dawned upon him that his idea needed a lot of refining; he had some thinking to do. But the evening was long and there was plenty of fuel for his thoughts.

At least he had an idea now.

The rest can’t be so difficult, can it?

If you didn't like this post, you'll probably hate these:

• Three lives crammed into one post.
• The rascal. (Chapter 13)
• Luther doesn’t live here anymore. (Chapter 37)
• The curious fool. (Chapter 48)
• The idiot’s guide to marketing. (Chapter 39)