Some time after I discovered the silent “k” but long before I managed to string an English sentence together, I noticed a trend where items were swiftly removed from my hands and guarded “for the time-being”. My crayons were confiscated. Toys, sharp objects, inappropriate magazines, anything moderately exciting inevitably became the property of “the time-being”. Naturally I began to wonder who this great being of time was and when the hell was he gonna give me all my cool stuff back. I imagined it to be a father-time of the cartoons (I had no imagination) - a sort of lean, anamorphic Santa wearing a quieter outfit (a simple beige smock?) whooping it up with my Crayolas in some secret room made of marzipan.
