Fyodor
Confucius Goodspeed had always been rather unusual. Even as a child, he had been
a ridiculously lanky lad with pale skin, like tissue paper. His head had
produced a wild tuft of hair that sprouted from his scalp like a weed.
Otherwise, he was completely bald from the moment he was born, all through his
life. It was like his cranium generated so much heat it singed the hair from
his head. Fyodor had always dressed entirely in white, claiming he had neither
the time nor the patience to match what he wore any other way.
Fyodor’s most notable difference though was his genius, a word
that literally means “unusual intelligence.” He used his overwhelming mental
capacity to build machines from a young age. Sources of energy were his
specialty and, around age seven, he built his first nuclear reactor. Over his
parents’ gasps at the glowing monstrosity on his bedspread, he commented,
“Well, that was easy.”
So, as his parents scoured the phonebook for a company
specializing in residential atomic reactor removal, Fyodor took out a blank
piece of paper and started fresh. He had entirely new ideas how to power
things.
Fyodor unveiled his new thinking at the Fourth Grade Science
Fair. While other young scientists in the school’s gymnasium displayed erupting
volcanoes, model rockets, and gyroscopes, Fyodor unveiled a five-inch-wide, by
five-inch-tall, by five-inch-long cube. The cube was dark and featureless. It
looked like a perfectly cut square of black onyx. Black onyx is a type of stone
so dark staring into it is like staring into a void. That was how Fyodor’s cube
looked: it was a small, perfectly square, infinite void.
Mr. Burton, the school’s fourth grade science teacher, stretched
his plump cheeks to smile at Fyodor’s project.
“Well Fy,” said Mr. Burton, using Fyodor’s nickname. “It seems
that you have entered a rock into the Science Fair. Are you presenting
geology?”
“It’s not a rock. It’s an energy source,” Fyodor said plainly.
Mr. Burton laughed, “An energy source! How could that be? It’s
clearly a rock — a very interesting rock — but a rock regardless.
Did you shape it yourself? Do you have a rock chisel around here?”
“No, I don’t. Rock cutting is for bozos. This is an energy
source. It provides unlimited power.”
“Fy,” said Mr. Burton, his fat cheeks flattening, “This is a
Science Fair, not an Imagination Fair. I’ll enter your submission as ‘The Onyx
Rock: a Rock Cutting Example by Fy Goodspeed.’ I’m sure you will do quite well
in the fair, although rock cutting certainly won’t win first place.” He wrote
something on the tablet he carried.
“It’s not a rock,” Fyodor insisted. “It is the single smallest,
but most powerful, source of energy on Earth. It can power a jet by itself, no
fuel needed. It can provide renewable power to a large city. It can even run in
a vacuum, like space, without any oxygen. It never runs out of energy yet it produces
no pollution! I call it the Onyx Sun.” A small smile of pride crossed Fyodor’s
lips.
Mr. Burton squinted down at
Fyodor through fleshy eye slits. His eyes flashed with frustration. “Fy, keep
this up and I’ll have to give you a zero,” he said. “Now, is it a rock or is it
a source of unlimited power?”
Fyodor held his teacher’s gaze. After a long moment, he plucked
the cube from the table and strode down the aisles of exhibits. He approached
Tim Cleatus, who was demonstrating to a large crowd how a gas-powered go-kart
works.
“This is the fuel tank,” Tim was saying, using a metal pointer
to identify the object. “It’s currently empty since they wouldn’t let me bring
gasoline to school.”
Fyodor pushed Tim aside, cut through the crowd, and ripped a
wire from the go-kart’s engine.
“Hey! What are you doing?” Tim cried, trying futilely to push
people aside.
Fyodor turned to face Mr. Burton at the far end of the
gymnasium. Everyone watched. Fyodor held the wire up in the air in one hand and
the Onyx Sun in the other. As he brought his hands together, a blue bolt of
electricity arced from the cube to the wire. The wire leapt toward the cube
like it was a magnet and stuck to its side. Fyodor reached down and pressed the
ignition button.
The go-kart engine roared to life. People stepped back. Tim
Cleatus stopped in his tracks. Mr. Burton let the tablet fall to his side, his
mouth wide open.
“It is
a source of unlimited power,” Fyodor said. He stared at the crowd staring back
at him. Then, he shrugged. Fyodor hopped into the go-kart, revved the engine,
and raced toward the back of the gymnasium. Students and teachers leapt out of
the way. He burst through the emergency exit doors leaving behind a sea of open
mouths under a fog of blue tire smoke.
That was the last day Fyodor Confucius Goodspeed attended
normal school.
