Ageing Child Prodigy Outraged As Other Students Catch Up

John Man, laurel-rester and cloth-toucher, was an extraordinarily talented musician as a child. He famously performed the Big Difficult Piece at the age of twelve or even less, and ever since then he has had a high profile career being the real life version of himself.

“It was very easy being myself,” he explained. “It came naturally to me.”

Recently, Man was outraged to find that some of the less talented musicians he grew up with were starting to catch up with him. After applying themselves to their chosen profession industriously for many years, they now play as well as him, and in some cases even better.

“I just don’t understand how this could have happened,” said Man. “One of them even had the gall to suggest that maybe I should practise more regularly if I want to stay good, which is just the sort of thing a person without my talent would say.”

Man was keen to explain that although anyone can work hard at something and achieve mastery through discipline, he didn’t expect that sort of thing to be possible in other people. “I’m not trying to big-note myself, but people did call me a genius a few times,” he explained to his speed-dating partner. “So you can see why this is so confusing for me. If the non-geniuses can be just as good as me, it kind of devalues the whole thing.”

Latest reports indicate that Man is writing a memoir about his experiences, called “I Will Always Be The Best That One Time.”