Fathers are like pieces of marble – giant cubes, well-polished, with veins and joints – placed right in the middle of your path. They block your way. You can't jump over them, nor slip past until they become the past. They are the "past," and probably the slip as well, if we consider "slip" as that convenient motion one makes to go unnoticed or remain unharmed. If you try to pass one, you'll find that another (winking cunningly at the first) has mysteriously appeared across the path. Or perhaps it's the same one, moving at the speed of paternity.