Collective Sparks, Volume 2

Creative writing showcase: prompt challenge

A lone bird in winter branches as the harvest moon rises; Photo by Gary Fultz on Unsplash

✨ Prompt Time – Harvest Moon Edition ✨

This rotation brought in a set of striking pieces — layered, haunting, and full of imagination. From borrowed moons and unraveling shadows to clocks that bend time, each writer here gave us something unforgettable.

Huge thanks to everyone who stepped in with a piece. You carried shadows through corridors, wove moons into memory, bent the hours until they broke open. Each of you gave us something to linger over.

That’s what I love about these gatherings: whether many voices or few, the sparks always burn bright.

Current prompts:

1️⃣ Shadows — As the days shorten, you notice shadows stretching far past their owners, pooling at corners and climbing fences. One shadow slips free and points somewhere — where someone or something lost might still be waiting.

2️⃣ Borrowed memories — You wake with a stranger’s memories stitched through your mind: all revolving around a Harvest Moon. Each time you follow one, reality reshuffles to fit it.

3️⃣ Time-change hour — On the night the clocks fall back, you get the lost hour as a do-over. Your actions in this time prevent something small and break something big.

---

🌀 Reset

Daylight held in hands
short and long
rush of tide.
Splash of salt water
between toes.
We sink together
sand settling in the gears.
Click and wind,
no one minds
if you collect extra hours
in sea shells.
We spiral in the echo.
Throw watches in the wake
of waves.
Suddenly drowning
on the beach alone.
Dreams are sand stuck
in sandals and footprints
are just photographs
that reset hours
where you smile.
We walk the rocks
skipping wishes
for one more day.
—

Tangled Words

---

⏳ When the Clocks Fell Back

When the clocks fell back,
the town exhaled steam
from manholes and chimneys,
the streets washed in amber
from crooked lamplight.
November leaves skittered
like copper coins
along cracked sidewalks,
and the night tilted open
an extra hour,
a hinge in time
only he could feel.

He stood at the corner diner,
hands in his coat,
watching his reflection shiver
in the black gloss of the window.
Inside, a waitress leaned heavy
on one elbow,
her hair caught in a knot,
her pencil tapping an order pad
with no orders to take.
The radio hummed low,
a love song tangled in static.

He pushed through the door,
the bell above it
ringing once,
as if marking the start
of a secret.
The coffee came quick,
burnt and sharp,
the kind that clings
to the roof of the mouth.
He almost told her
about the hour slipped loose,
about how the world
was running on a broken gear
but instead,
he just sipped,
eyes drawn to the clock
stalled on the wall.

A boy darted past outside,
shoelaces slapping pavement,
chasing a dog
too close to the curve of the road.
The man rose,
cup left half full,
coins scattered like bones
on the counter.
He stepped into the street,
caught the collar,
pulled the dog back
before the tires
could write grief in rubber.

In that held breath,
the world stuttered.
The streetlight flickered.
The sound of wheels on asphalt
twisted into silence.
Somewhere blocks away,
a door slammed harder,
a marriage cracked deeper,
a small kindness missed
and an argument flared.
He felt it,
though he could not see it
the trade written
into the marrow of the hour.

By the time the clocks
clicked forward again,
the boy was laughing,
the dog tugging the leash,
and the man’s coffee
had gone cold.
Inside the diner,
the waitress had disappeared
into the kitchen,
as if she had never been.
Her pencil still tapped,
faint on the counter,
the sound of an absence
echoing louder
than presence ever did.

He walked home through fog,
the hour folded shut
like an unread letter,
and he carried it inside him:
the boy’s breath saved,
the unknown fracture elsewhere,
and the way time gives
only what it takes away.
—

Bear Sage

---

Clockwork and old faces in shadow: time stalled between ticks; Photo by Caleb Toranzo on Unsplash

🌑 Borrowed Memories

We are on the bus into the city.
His fingers feather across mine
in the dark of the tunnel
I hesitate to let our skin
warm together.
Moment unfurls wrong.
Then his watch ticks counter
to its intuition.
His grip pulls me back
to the day I should have held on.

Time kicks us off the bus.
Shuttled back to the day before.
Foot taps awkwardly to the beat.
John Lennon sings Imagine
from the tinny speakers.
He holds out a hand silent invitation to dance.
Chime of the grandfather clock whispers warnings of regret.
We dance like we should have then.

This time, the past devours the fear.
This time, I stand on tip toe for a
kiss.
This time, the universe shakes apart death.
— Tangled Words

---

🌕 The Seam of Borrowed Moons

I woke with orchard bark under my fingernails
though I had not walked among trees.
The ceiling thickened with hay-dust,
the fan spun straw into hours.
A crow’s wing was stitched across my temple,
its feathers ticking like a clock inside my skull.

The Harvest Moon leaned low and heavy inside my chest,
its glow pushing against my lungs.
It dragged memories into me:
a woman setting cider jars on a porch,
a boy scraping mud from his boots,
a bonfire spinning sparks into the stars.
None of them mine, yet they cracked open
like fruit dropped into my sleep.

I lifted a glass of water
the water rose in apples, dripping light.
The swallow burned my throat with lantern-flame.
Every step, the floor shifted dialect:
tile spoke rooster, floorboard spoke fiddle,
soil mouthed prayers from another century.

She appeared carrying the lantern,
and the lantern carried its own skeleton of fire.
Her shadow climbed the wall faster than her body.
When she turned, my ribs rearranged themselves
to echo the ladder of her spine.
Her gaze carried seasons I had never lived,
and still they clung to my skin like burrs.

I opened a door and stepped into a wheelbarrow.
A child’s breath folded me into hay.
The wheelbarrow rolled forward
through alley, through barn, through train station,
iron tracks bending into orchard rows.
The fiddle followed as weather,
its bow pulling lightning across the horizon.

At the field’s edge, jars glowed
each one holding a Harvest Moon sliced thin.
One jar pulsed with a drowned boy’s pockets of moths.
Another, a barn roof sagging under migrating geese.
Another, a woman’s laugh stitched into apple bark.
When I touched the glass,
steam stitched itself into my wrist,
a vein re-routed to someone else’s story.

The world broke into heaps:
shoes still warm with smoke,
fence posts bleeding ink,
a staircase swallowed by corn.
Each pile spoke to me in memories
I should not have known.

The woman tipped the lantern
and the flame fell sideways.
My teeth turned transparent.
Inside them, a language of insects clicked.
The dog came, carrying the Harvest Moon between its jaws.
When it dropped it at my feet,
the ground thudded like a drum of wet skin.

I walked each step revising the orchard: fruit liquefied into handwriting, grass froze into jars of breath, the sky tore in strips of fabric tasting of iron.

She touched my chest
and pulled out a splinter the size of a century.
The seam along my scalp split open.
Instead of blood: straw, moth-dust, and cider steam.
The air drank it greedily,
hungry for what did not belong.

I carried forward the weight of a lantern’s skeleton,
its light fractured into ribs of glass,
each rib a borrowed memory,
each rib a road paved with Harvest Moons.
— Bear Sage

---

A shadow that seems to point somewhere just out of frame; Photo by Rene Böhmer on Unsplash🖤 Shadows in the Hall

Rushing. Late for class, I lightly rebounded off the wall when rounding the corner. A sudden collision with something caused me to stumble and fall to one knee.
“I’m so sorry, I should’ve been looking—“

The words fell from my mouth as I looked around and beheld… no one and nothing there.
Rubbing my elbow, I scrambled back up to continue on to class.

A predictable three hours later and a lot more tired, I emerged. As I walked past the place where I stumbled, I couldn’t help but remember the disquiet I’d felt in that moment.
My mind far away as I slowed, I almost failed to see it.

The shadow cast from a nearby table looked… wrong somehow.
I couldn’t quite place exactly what was wrong, but it was.

My footsteps halted and I stood, staring for the longest time. My mind slipped on something slick and slid into another realm.
A realm where there was a hum and a pulse beneath everything that I beheld—and what I beheld looked so… normal.
But not normal in any way.

At once.

My disquiet grew and I felt a breath at the nape of my neck, where the hairs stood in response.
The shadow seemed to quiver with that breath.

A sudden ringing snapped me out of this reverie and back into the present moment. Tennis shoes and loafers darted around me, scurrying, bearing their owners to their destinations.

But that shadow had grown in length.

And nobody walking between it and the source of light—a wide bank of windows—disturbed or occluded it in any way.
Shaking my head, I walked away quickly.

Glancing at my watch, I was shocked to find a full hour had passed in what should have been mere minutes.
I felt very uneasy and wanted, suddenly, to be anywhere but here.

As I shifted and started to turn, I saw it clearly.
The tail end of the shadow rippled and seemed to be tugging away, as if it was struggling for freedom.

A partial giggle escaped my mouth before I clamped a hand over it. Warning bells clanged in my mind… along with a feeling of ripping in my mind.
The breath reappeared at my neck but I knew better than to look this time.

As I watched, the shadow pulled away from its mooring.
And seemed to tremble for a moment, bouncing slightly to and fro.
Suddenly, it raced under my feet and past me. I whirled around to follow its progress, stumbling a bit in my haste.

At the top of the hallway, it hooked a sharp left and raced out of sight.
I sprinted after it, desperate to see where it went.
Driven, I rounded the corner in time to see it flow right at the next intersection.
I tore after it, ignoring the stitch in my side from my dead sprint.

On it led me, through the hallways, carving a wild path through hallways familiar, yet somehow off.
My breaths hitching, sucking oxygen in huge gasps, I was relieved when it suddenly stopped.

My own stop was much less graceful, momentum still carrying me forward past my planted feet. I pinwheeled my arms to keep from bowling over.
Regaining my balance, I saw the shadow had not moved, but was almost “pointing” at a door which looked familiar, though I couldn’t place why.

I felt my heart thundering, the sound loud in my ears.

The shadow quivered as it pointed, reminding me of an arrow pulled taut on the bow.
I felt an inexorable pull toward that door, as if it had been waiting for me to open it.

Steeling myself with a few deep breaths, I obliged.

The room was dark and in a shambles. Rows of shelves lined the walls on three sides; their contents set in a haphazard arrangement with many spilled onto the floor. Pictures in frames, vases, candles, and books featured predominantly, and looked as if someone had swept through them, searching in haste.

Moving deeper into the room, where the light from the hallway didn’t penetrate, I felt a coldness seep into my bones. My teeth started to chatter lightly.
If there’d been enough light, I could have seen my breath.

I came up short, my right foot stopping at something unseen, that gave a little without really budging.
Pulling my phone out of my bag, I flicked on the flashlight and startled so sharply, I dropped it.
It landed on its face, throwing the room over more into darkness.

But I knew what I had seen in that instant: an impossibility.

My hands shaking, I crouched and felt around for my phone, carefully avoiding that which lay before me.
Finally finding it, I took a deep, steadying breath, and pointed it once more in front of me.

There I lay, spread out and not moving. I was pale and so very still.
My hands shook so badly as I reached forward, the light bounced up and down, revealing more of the space around me.

Candles surrounded me, long extinguished. A fat, worn book lay on its spine, the pages open and marked with the attached ribbon.
Could it be someone else—a doppelgänger?—but no. I knew in my gut this was not the case.

Was I dead? Undetermined.

Gingerly, I poked myself. Still faintly warm, but only just.
My finger came away with a light residue. Dust.
The breath was hot and insistent on my neck this time and I turned around sharply.

No one there.

Taking it all in, I didn’t know what to make of anything. My mind slipped further from me, seeming to slide back to that other realm.
I pinched myself. Hard.

Still there.
And lying on the floor, arms flung wide and my legs crossed before me.

As if I’d been reading the book in front of me before whatever had happened.

Peering around quickly and discerning no movement, I moved toward the book, crouching once again to read the pages that lay open before me.
The ribbon-marked passage swam into focus.

Shadow follows form; form follows breath. Sever shadow, sever breath. Remember always the way of return: to wake, to rise, to claim the vessel. Forget, and you will drift among echoes, until another walks in your place.
Do not linger. Each moment away erodes the bond. Forget the tether and you will not return.

My stomach dropped. The dust on my skin, the hours lost… it was already happening.
“No,” I whispered, voice breaking. I dropped the phone and threw myself across my body, clawing to align with it. I willed my chest to rise, my heart to beat.

Nothing.

I screamed into the silence, pressing harder, forcing breath into lungs that no longer wanted me.
Tears pooled in my eyes, as my vision swam. I slammed my hands against my lifeless body over and over, like a supplicant begging entry at a forbidden temple door.
The light started to dim, my own grasp on reality tilting.

And then—

A gasp. My gasp.

The world tilted, blackened, and snapped back. I was staring at the ceiling tiles, body aching, chest heaving. Alive.
I sat up, hands shaking, clutching the book. The room was empty. The hallway outside hummed with distant footsteps, normal, ordinary.

It was over.

I exhaled, long and trembling, heart overcome with gratitude for my life.
Picking up my things, I wondered at the time, even the day.
My memory was off and I felt disoriented.
Moving out into the hallway and firmly closing the door, I breathed a sigh of relief.

Until I saw it.

The shadow, pooled at my feet.

Quivering.

Pointing at me.
—

Liora Writes

---

🩸 The Procession of Shadows

The sun collapses.
Shadows rip free,
black smoke with teeth,
smeared across brick and fence,
climbing walls,
spilling into streets
like oil with a pulse.

Each one carries a blade
shaped from the marrow
of its host.
Each one drips
with the stench of deeds
we carved into others.

They circle,
jawbones grinding,
robes of soot and iron,
and point.
Always pointing.
Fingers crooked,
nails split open,
showing the heaps:

lies rotting in piles of tongue,
betrayals stacked like wet timber,
laughter sharpened into glass,
fists still imprinted on invisible faces.
All of it throbs,
a harvest dumped in ash.

A man claws his own skin
as his shadow drags him
through blood-slick dust.
A woman swallows her scream
until her throat bursts
and her voice becomes
a river of molten tar.

Shadows do not pause.
They do not look away.
They force the living husk
to kneel in front of its work.
Every crime breathes here.
Every cruelty grows teeth.
The air clogs with it,
thick as smoke inside lungs
that cannot stop burning.

Mine comes forward,
face split into a cavern of knives,
hand raised to the altar
of what I fed the world.
I walk into it.
The ground cracks under my weight.
The sky spills black rain.
This is the kingdom we build,
the inheritance of every act,
the crown carved from our own rot.
— Bear Sage

---

➡️ Bonus Spotlight

Because I accidentally linked to the previous week’s prompts (oops), a few treasures surfaced there too!

Prompt:
2️⃣ Doorways
Describe a doorway you’ve walked through (literal or metaphorical) that changed you.

---

The doorway of the dream of hell. Walking thru the corridor of the hall of the hotel, I walked thru the doorway and I saw nothing but doors, how many of these doorways did I enter to clean rooms, The doorway to each room spoke a different story behind them were the smoke of pot smokers, blood stans, puke on the floor, stinky diapers, wax in the tub. Pick a magic door like the one that left behind unopened beer in fridge to take home or a $100 dollar bill on the desk for a tip of cleaning the room the day before. Every doorway in this hotel had a story. I would dream at night of going to work and walking thru the doorway and there be nothing but doors for miles. — Pamela Yates

---

Not a doorway, but a portal of sorts...

No point in sleeping
when purpose feels lost.
Writing is just scribbling.
Painting impossible
with hands shaking.
Silent choking,
a way of holding whispers
in the ether.
Cards fall without a shuffle.
Open minds eye portal
without a care.
Death isn’t a closed door.
Dying isn’t giving up
it’s reinventing a trapped soul.
— Tangled Words

---

To the authors featured here: thank you for the gift of your work. Each piece opens a door, casts a light, or carves out a question that stays with the reader long after.

I’ll be back soon with a new trio of prompts to set the next round in motion. Until then, may your shadows point toward light, your borrowed moons keep glowing, and your lost hours return to you in surprising ways.

Where will your pen take you next, if you let it wander past the edges of the familiar?
— Liora

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