USA. A family restaurant. They seated us, handed menus, and then delivered crayons to every person at the table without asking who was a child. Crayons. Wax. Color. For everyone. In my land, such instruments are earned through age or office. Here, they arrive with the water, as if adulthood were optional paperwork. I did not touch mine at first. I am a grown man. My friend was already coloring a dinosaur with serious intent. “They’re for the kids menu,” the waitress said. “I see,” I said. “And yet they are here.” She smiled the smile of a nation that does not distinguish between hunger and play. The child at the next booth was watching me. I could feel the judgment of a five-year-old art critic. I picked up the red crayon. I shaded the edge of the pancake drawing on the placemat. The paper resisted, then yielded. Something in me yielded with it. By the time the food arrived, I had filled the sky orange. My friend had written his name in block letters. The child asked his mother why the samurai got the good colors. “I don’t know, honey.” “I don’t know, honey.” I don’t know either. That is the honest part. I was not embarrassed. I was not finished. I had been defeated by wax. A man does not underestimate tools that have pacified ten thousand children before lunch. I know the rule now. Adult menu. Child placemat. Both can be true. Who am I deceiving. I will color the sky every time. In America, the crayon is not a toy. It is a truce between the table and time, and I intend to honor every truce offered to me.