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This study aims to explore a phenomenon of a one-off manifestation of mathematical creativity on the part of a student, against the background of her normative and not especially creative behavior—a flash of creativity. We seek to elaborate on this phenomenon in terms of the 4P (person, press, process and product) model of creativity. Namely, most of the time the student having particular personality traits (person) studies mathematics in a regular to her learning environment (press), in which she manifests problem-solving behaviors (process) and produces solutions (product) that are considered, by the student, her classmates and her mathematics teacher, as normative or usual to that student. However, the same individual may at times become unusually and unexpectedly creative when coping with a challenging problem. We first discuss this phenomenon based on an historical example and theoretically, and then illustrate it through a case of a high-school student while focusing on a nexus of intellectual and emotional triggers that led the student to drastically change, for one time only, her normative mathematical behavior. Implications for research and practice are drawn.