There is a leak in the wall of Guyana’s national museum.
Rain drools down the plaster. The leak gets bigger with each downpour. It threatens to damage the museum’s most expensive exhibit.
In a large room on the ground floor is a giant prehistoric ground sloth, standing on her haunches, arms reaching up into an artificial cannonball tree.
Megatherium. Gather to her friends and to the people who come to see her.
The officials don’t think the leak is a big problem, so they ignore it.
The leak gets bigger.
The officials decide to put a patch over it.
Covering up a problem only makes it worse. The heavy Guyana rainwater pools inside the wall, then spreads out to become many leaks.
Water snakes across the floor, putting the treasured exhibit in peril.
By the time the officials decide to do the work necessary to fix what is really wrong, the damaged wall has to be completely taken down, and a new, stronger wall needs to be built in its place.
It takes the workers a whole day to take down the wall. At the end of the day, they hang big sheets of plastic over the gap, secure the sheets with bricks and boards, then head home to their families.
The sky is dark. The museum is quiet.
The only movement is the night breeze, tickling the edges of the plastic, looking for a way inside.