Mother was towing him through the glass-encased jungle when he spotted a woman weeping by a fountain. She was on parole from heaven—gold as picture-book August, eyes the blue of ghosts, with bored fans stirring her hair, a restless nimbus. Coffin’s ten-year-old heart doubled in age at the sight of her; but what did he know of romance when he didn’t even have enough pubic hair to braid? A small bird had gotten into the museum and a robot worker—a cross between Spartacus and a wheelchair—had gone after it. Whirring about with a net at the end of a telescoping arm, the robot had further agitated the terrified bird, which, in a desperate attempt at escape, had flown full-force into one of the expansive windowpanes. The wee black bird thumped on the glass, splashed in the fountain pool, flailed a bit, then floated, a frayed clump of coal. The woman had witnessed all this with horror, had even tried to dissuade the feverous machine, to no avail. She rushed to the fountain and stood there lamenting, as Coffin and his mother made their way through the lush maze of foliage.
