On the other hand, I remember with reverence [...] one of my teachers, Mr. Palmer, an old man who looked like an Arab. [...] I inherited a story from him, so to speak - first it was his boyhood memory and then it became one of my boyhood memories. He told me:

"I remember a journey that my father, my older brothers and I made through Serbia. It was during the seventies, and we were traveling on horseback. We had just crossed a river, when predatory creatures galloped up the other bank and shouted a word at us: (He emitted a cry of rage mixed from consonants, which I think sounded like 'ammā'!). They shouted it several times, just that one word. I still remember it as I do today, see it and hear it. Even now I do not know what the word meant. I could have looked it up in the dictionary, but - I did not. That's very funny!"

The story came rather suddenly, by the way, it meant nothing and was a mystery to me at first; but later it became 'a word on the way'. One should not tap the butterfly dust from one's clearest memories, one should not realize one's dearest dreams. The iron-fitted treasure chest that you find under the apple tree is perhaps only filled with dry leaves - so it is better not to open it. Mr. Palmer is dead now and certainly did not look up his word. Maybe it was an indifferent curse. He was a wise man.

— Gunnar Ekelöf, The Way of an Outsider