SKYLERIZED

The car stopped at the red light. Presley Gauguin looked at the time on the dashboard. The heat flowed and the rider’s favorite station continued to play.

Professors Connor Mettle, Milo Kiln, and Donnell Wayson, or the New Sweden Kids of the New Sweden University in Wilmington, Delaware, had been called. Again. This time they had been tasked to address the number of criminals rushing from New York and New Jersey to drive into the state of Delaware. They arrived at the Delaware Memorial Bridge where a checkpoint had been instituted. Wayson tied his tie in the mirror.

They hardly knew a lick of English. They could comprehend dribs and drabs here and there, but could by no means speak it fluently. But they worked. They had just finished receiving Delaware’s first non-government-backed business license for restaurants. As the family rejoiced at this achievement, they still had trouble with assimilating into the American culture. That all changed when cacao-colored Shanae Tyner walked through the doors of the well-kept restaurant.

As the ball rolled down the chute, anxious eyes abounded. They jostled and thumbed at their mobile devices to see just what the final number would be.

Against the swirls of water, the bottles, crates, tires and straws all gathered together in a soup of the final stage of the productive process. Fish chomped on shoestrings. Birds gobbled up plastic bags like they were carrion. Something had to be done. Gertrude Octavio surveyed the area and held back tears. She and her photographer, Lorenzo Jerkins, had covered this part of the Christina River in Wilmington, Delaware for the past fifteen years documenting the various changes to the habitat.

There’s much to say about the Garden of the Guardians. Firstly, it was named that to recognize the recent men and women who, through private means, founded the United States of America. Then, sculptor Talbot Cardigan realized that he should expand the exhibit to include those people from various centuries who built up an entire country. Cardigan himself would take the time to show the tourists around the various pieces. A group of the curious followed Cardigan through the labyrinth that misty Monday in Wilmington, Delaware.