Your writing prompt this week is
CHOICES
In life we often have to make difficult choices. We might be forced to help one person over another, or to leave a job, have an operation, move away, go to college, buy a new car, change doctors, etc. Sometimes it’s not life changing and is a more simple choice such as deciding what to have for dinner, or what flavour ice cream we want. Though those decisions can be pretty tricky too!
Fact or fiction, prose or poetry, I would love to read your thoughts on this week’s prompt, but there’s no obligation to share your writing. Here is the work you shared on the last prompt SIGN.
Sign of the Chameleon
The Chameleon: (June 21—July 22) Colorful souls born under the sign of The Chameleon have the remarkable capacity of adapting to the world around them. The multidimensional chameleon has a broad spectrum of interests and talents and is often the favorite son or daughter. The Biblical story of Jacob giving his youngest and favorite son Joseph a coat of many colors perfectly illustrates, however, how what starts out as a blessing might often evolve into a curse. Luckily, however, those born under the stars of The Chameleon will have the ability to change diversity into blessing. Thus does the chameleon constantly adjust with the world to bring himself/herself from danger to safety, danger to safety.
Chameleons are often given the gift of prophecy and clairvoyance. It is perhaps their precognitive dreams that enable them to adjust more quickly to the vagaries of their environment and that serve as a guide through life’s travails. The Chameleon sometimes lacks focus and in spreading himself too thinly may become a jack-of-all-trades and a master of none.
Chameleons often have a hard time finding a balance between their own needs and the needs of others, which leads to a constant rebalancing between selfishness and self-sacrifice. Regularity will never be the norm for the chameleon as he shifts between isolation and over-extension. All too often, his colorful world includes the colors of black and white—extremes that can cause him to have bipolar tendencies. Fortunately, his tendency to change hue with the situation causes him to rarely carry his shifts in mood to their extremes.
Tony:
SIGN, O azure ember, firefly on the nape of time.
In you wraps the spell, opal arrow piercing our eyelids.
You sparkle on the lips of comets, scent of absinthe, ivory lightning, secret beat where the universe marries flesh.
By your whisper, the ruins turn green, the night rears, and our veins, drunk with dawn, overthrow the invisible.
SIGN, word-oracle, crystal that evaporates : you reveal the road without naming it, and we walk, burned, amazed, towards the breath absent from the forgotten stars …
The cloister calledIncarnation Monastery is located in the Berkeley Hills, just North of the University of California and the Graduate Theological Union. It posted a job opening in the local classified section seeking to fulfill it for their advertising campaign. As my altered ego wanted this job so bad, this time he was prepared for the interview knowing the position would be his.
During the interview I had chosen to wear a loose fitting cotton shirt and blue sweat pants. I was offered the job which required me to wear a sandwich board sign made of plastic. I found a rubber plant to sit in front of where the traffic couldn’t miss me. I never dreamed that this would become a life long career forcing me to wear this outfit over and over.
I am happy
That I am here with you
I am happy
With the mountain and the sea
Even with storms we’ve got to go through
The challenges we’ve surpassed, signs that we grew
I am happy
Signs of our lives
This way, that way
As long as we’re together
We’ll find our own way
Signs of our lives
I hired a billboard sign
To ask my love to be mine
But she took one look
And me she forsook
And said I was ninth in line.
The sign told me to turn around.
I’m glad I did at last.
I heard the sound.
The rocky ground
below my feet was vast.
The sign reads KEEP OUT this means you in drippy black paint on a white board. I had to ignore it since being positive this homeowner had never met me before. Walking up the dusty gravel drive and viewing the ramshackle house, it occurred to me that these folks were probably not in the market for a Bentley Turbo convertible. Cursing my luck at having the poorest district in the Bentley sales organization I rang the bell. “Can’t you read?” came the call from behind the screen door and a cotton ball hanging on a string. “Morning sir” I replied. “Don’t morning me son. Now, unless you are selling Bentley turbo convertibles, git or I’ll tan your britches with this here rocksalt loaded shotgun.”
A smile broke out on my face and I removed my hat.
A billboard blinks above a crowded freeway, selling salvation in 30-second bursts, for a tidy tithe.
Plastic wrappers gather at the feet of trees, clinging like lost children.
A child learns to swipe before he learns to write.
Voices shout harshly in comment threads, while real mouths forget how to speak.
The government falters, along with bridges, roads, and rails.
Temperatures rise and somewhere a glacier breaks and no one hears it as we drill, baby, drill.
Unbreathable air, undrinkable water, food poisoned by toxic waste, while profits soar.
Lunacy leads from behind, enriching the rich and devastating the rest.
Lies and bombs bursting in air, innocents below suffer.
Racism, bigotry, prevail while DEI is denounced as too “woke.”
A drone hums overhead, indifferent in its orbit.
Hope scrolls by in pastel fonts, buried beneath sponsored grief.
We watch with sorrow in our hearts and tears in our eyes as our democracy dies.
A sign of the times is when
Division is at it’s wits end
Please pray for peace
And less of the fleece
To make our world great again!
The Signs
there were signs
i saw them—
some, glaring like headlights
others, soft whispers
barely brushing the edges of my mind
but i ignored them
looked away
hoped silence could rewrite the truth
still, the signs remained
until the final blow—
you questioned
my love
my worth
as if they hinged
on how well i bent
to your whims and shifting winds
but love is not obedience
and i am not a vessel
for your convenience
We look for a sign
A thing to believe in
Some tangible proof
We have reason to hope
We wander in circles
Create idols from our own imagination
Claim that we are not lost but found
Believe that we can be our own salvation
Our eyes our closed to the bush that burns
Deaf to the voice in the desert
Though truth is told from the mouth of the whale
We refuse to heed and obey
What will it take to finally see
What sign will be sufficient
Until then we’ll never be truly free
Our lives will be forever deficient
Sanny M:
A sign of the times
A sign of the cross
A sign of the zodiac
A sign of loss
A sign of ill health
A sign shows the way
A sign from above
A sign of today
Whatever the sign
We read what we may.
He was nervous. He sat in his car, glancing into his rear view mirror every now and then, but it was his same old face that looked back at him. What am I doing? he asked himself. Shaking his head, he got out of the car. The large sign over the door read, Vito’s Italian Restaurant. He buttoned his jacket and went inside.
The maitre’d greeted him. “I’m Gary Baker. I’m here to meet someone,” he said. He was shown to his table in the crowded restaurant. Alice had not arrived yet. He ordered a bottle of wine and waited. Then he saw her. She had on an emerald green dress and her hair was still long. She turned and looked at him, and smiled, while she approached his table. She was older, but still lovely. When she got to the table, she held out her hand and he pressed it briefly, astonished at how bright her green eyes were.
“Oh, Gary, it’s so good to see you!” she said. The waiter appeared with the wine and poured two glasses. “I couldn’t believe it when you called. It’s been a long time.”
“I was just thinking about you and wondering how it is that we never run into each other anymore. I was remembering all the wonderful evenings we spent together. So, I looked you up. A few phone calls, it wasn’t that hard. I wanted to see how you’ve been.”
“I’ve been alright. It hasn’t been easy, but I have managed to carve out a life,” Alice said. She drank some wine and continued, “After I was fired from your firm, it was difficult to get a new job, but Smith & Smith gave me a chance and I proved myself. I was there for a few years, then I was hired by Zwerner & Klein. I have been with them since, and I do love it there.”
“I can see why. A very prestigious law firm. I’m sure the work is very interesting.” Gary said, and the waiter appeared to take their orders.
“Yes, but I loved my job at your firm. I wish things hadn’t happened the way they did.”
“Me, too,” Gary said, “but when my wife found out about us, I had no choice. A divorce would have ruined me financially and socially. I know you understand.” Gary reached across the table for her hand, “I had no choice, Alice.”
“That may be true, but you never contacted me to see if I was alright. You never even gave me a reference except to say I worked for you. I actually loved you, you know. It hurt, Gary, you hurt me.” Alice drank some wine and filled her glass. “So, I was surprised to hear from you. I thought, he’s finally going to put things right.”
“Put things right? What do you mean?” Gary asked, surprised.
“Well, why did you contact me after all this time?” Alice asked.
Gary paused. “Alice, my wife died a few months ago. I have been very lonely, and I just couldn’t get you out of my mind. I was really hoping we could pick up where we left off. I’ve never known a woman as amazing as you.” Gary held up his hand, “I know it’s been a long time, but we were good together, you and me. You said yourself that you loved me.”
Alice stared at him, unable to speak. When she could manage to talk, her words came tumbling out, “You want to pick up where we left off? Meeting at hotels and sneaking around? Staying late at the office and you promising me that you loved me, that you hated your wife and were going to leave her? Go back to my humiliation and ruin when I was escorted out of the office without a job and income? While you refused to even look at me?” Alice stood up, her whole body trembling with anger. “I thought you were finally going to say you were sorry for how awful you treated me. Perhaps help me financially for the predicament you put me in all those years ago. But no, I must’ve been crazy to think that you, Gary Baker, would do anything as human as that.” People were listening and staring at them, and Gary fidgeted in his seat. He begged her to be quiet and sit down. Instead, Alice turned on her heels and left, her shoulders back and her gaze directly ahead.
Gary could hear the murders around him, Gary Baker, attorney, did you hear that? His face was burning. He laid a hundred dollar bill on the table and left, every eye on him as he passed.
***
Esther Chilton 
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