Amaryllis By Linda HelmichJanuary 12, 2024 Sometimes in life, though we have had a season of flourishing, we find ourselves in a dark place, all alone. We feel like a chopped off, rather fat, ugly bulb with hardly even a sign of life. “What’s the use?” we ask. Still, maybe it won’t always be this […]
Fiction
Work in Progress is The Sopris Sun’s platform to highlight the local community’s creativity. Fictional short stories, poems and illustrations can be submitted to fiction@soprissun.com to be published.
Posted inFiction
Winter Solstice
By John F. NeileyGlenwood Springs The tattered remnants of the year unwindAs Earth leans weary on its wobbling pole.The waning sun retreats to warmer climesTo shield its pallid face from wind and cold. The ragged butt ends of the day burn low,While darkness of the longest night draws near.The river ebbs and freezes, choked and […]
Posted inFiction
No place like Glastonbury for the holidays
Winter holiday celebrations in Glastonbury, United Kingdom, also known as “the heart chakra of the world,” are a joyous mixed bag. It’s two months of pilgrimages and parties. After the Wild Hunt, heralding Hallowe’en and Samhain (SOW-en), the beginning of winter in the old Celtic traditions, comes Carnival. Floats the size of semi-trucks are pulled […]
Posted inFiction
Works in Progress
Drift By Eric Matthew Olander The rip roaring world is in a crazy phase, with the big blue moon winking, Drift (lounging in the wheel barrow) cracks a Red Stripe — Rastaman vibration, Yeah! Jah; one love — and lets the cap roll into the mud and feathers, shakes his head at the long and winding […]
Posted inFiction
A Life Ornamented
By Jessica Amber Barnum A young girl meanders far from homeon a winter adventurethrough thickets of forest.She comes upona tiny pine tree,its tip a sprig in the snow. She almost steps on it,but doesn’t.She leans down and brushes the snowfrom its branches, low and highthen digs down and downwith wet mittensand wild wonderuntil she reaches […]
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Works in Progress – Nov. 20, 2025
Creating a MonsterBy Tom MercerCarbondale-ish Victor Smith and Archibald Thomas had been close friends in earlier years. They grew up in the same small town, both attended the same college, and both men shared an acute interest in programming and the development of Artificial Intelligence, which is commonly called “AI.” Both men wanted to test […]
Posted inFiction
Works in Progress – Nov. 13, 2025
The ride: Mountain biking as an analogy for relationshipsBy Rachel Leigh CohenBasalt Shop around until you find the right bike for you. First, ask yourself: What kind of rider am I? && Where do I hope this adventure might take me? Study the frame & its making: the core materials, the design, the small seductive details. Notice […]
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Works in Progress – Nov. 6, 2025
‘The Territory of Loss’ By Daniel TorresTranslated by Freda Barron “Poetry is the territory of loss, and that assumption condemns the poet to a constant vigil.”– Eduardo Milán Lost for the love of letters; they injected me with the habit of life that my enthusiasm so desperately needs to keep me afloat. What would become […]
Posted inFiction
Works in Progress – Oct. 23, 2025
The States Bridger LangfurCrystal Valley Out on the East CoastSits an iodine manNo kingBy himselfHis mind failingGrasping at relevance Sawing at an overdone steak In these divided statesIn these states divided And in some far flung mountain townShaded by valley wallsThere can be heard the old wayDrifting down riversLost on quiet backwoods trailsStanding stillin the […]