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Sport 34: Winter 2006

Genius

page 91

Genius

From behind the paper Flood uses his actor voice. I'm sick of all this talk about genius. Everyone's a goddamn genius these days. Olivier, Brando, Leigh. Ha! Leigh was mad as a cut snake. He pauses, clears his throat. There is nothing extraordinary about talent. Federico's pencil stops moving. Bea looks up. What dear?

From the floor, Federico considers this and his drawing. He is trying to figure out why his people always look flat. At school his friend Robert showed him how to draw a box that looks real. He would be satisfied with a flat world if the outlines were steady. He remembers a book he saw at the library.

Einstein was a genius, says Federico.

Flood shakes his head. Einstein was a slow child. Didn't say a word till he was four. Then one night at dinner he says, Mother, this soup is cold.

Sounds genius to me, Bea says. She looks down at Federico. I believe geniuses are born.

Mr Flood folds his hands together and considers the light shade. It is my belief that the idea of genius gets confused with what is, in fact, hard work.

Who wants to believe in that? she says.

Exactly, Beatrice.