Stop

Cyril had been rash most of his life. He fell in love quickly, and fell out of love almost as fast. He made irresponsible financial choices and would be broke if not for the one woman that had stuck with him despite himself. His wife was thrifty and it balanced his carelessness. Cyril drove too fast, and didn’t pay attention. He ate junk food and drank beer, and did as little as he could get by with at home and at work. Cyril knew he had problems.

One day, driving home from work he saw that a car had crashed into a stop sign on a corner. The post holding the sign was twisted, and the stops sign itself was just hanging on by a screw. The sign touched something inside Cyril. He parked and walked over and inspected the sign.

The stop sign had been tagged a couple of times, and had writing scrawled on it. There were green growths on the sign that almost looked like cannabis buds. Cyril didn’t know what that was. Still, the sign made him think, and that was not something he did a lot. “Stop,” it said. He carefully unscrewed the sign from the post and threw it onto his passenger seat.

When he got home, he nailed the stop sign to a tree in his yard. He made sure he could see the sign from his front porch, where he liked to sit and drink his coffee in the morning and beer in the evening.

“Stop,” Cyril said, as he sat on his porch, looking at the sign. “Stop and think. That’s what I needed.” He sighed and somehow felt better.

That was the beginning of Cyril’s life change. He made conscious decisions based on his newly emerging good sense. He read books instead of watching television, and he cooked healthy dinners for his wife and himself. He tried to apply himself at work and always did a little extra around the house now, instead of the very bare minimum. Cyril even went on walks. He drew up a budget based on the household income. His wife enjoyed the little extra money they had for a night out at the movies or dinner.

Life was good, Cyril decided, when you Stop and think before taking action.

Cyril recently brought home another sign that had survived an automobile accident. This sign said, “Yield”. Cyril was wondering what that could come to mean to him. He wondered where he would put that sign….

The image is from Jonathan Cooper on Unsplash

Copyright ©2026 Lisa Paul. All rights reserved.

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Melissa’s Fandango Flash Fiction Challenge #376