Steven Simon Books
American Fiction & Poetry
Steven W. Simon is an American author best known for his novellas and poetry. His writing focuses on outsiders, misfits, and those who have never really fit in.
Fiction
Poetry
2024 Editor’s Choice Winner
Reader’s House Magazine, London
1
Ava was fixated on the boy in seat 28D before the engines went silent. Before the oxygen masks deployed above their heads and rebounded on their plastic tubes before settling. He had the height of the boys in her class, yet his puffy cheeks and darting eyes made her consider a younger age. His mother sat to his right, and from Ava’s perspective, only her hand and three-quarters of an arm underneath a maroon sleeve were visible. She handed him sour gummy candies and defeatedly suggested that he cease leaning over the seat to stare at the passengers behind them. He ate the candies with his mouth agape and Ava could see the neon greens and reds and oranges sticking to his gapped teeth. Strands of translucent drool dripped from his bottom lip and fell onto his blue T-shirt with a yellow baseball and bat.
His eyes met hers, and he let out a high-pitched squeal as he rubbed his hands together with steady pressure. She knew then that his age was moot, for whatever days elapsed into memory, he would only reach a certain mental maturity. Whether two, three, or with luck, six, his autistic mind would find its limit and remain, no matter wrinkles nor facial hair. At least, that’s what she was told, or had concluded, when they brought the ‘buddies’ to her fifth-grade classroom and encouraged empathy and understanding. Requirements for being a good human…
bleach
Lacquered walls
in white slathered bleach
masked the olfactory
heroin withdrawals amid needles arranged in heart shape
drip drip that salty blood
Splashed the diluted onto eggshell white ceilings and let it rain down and drip drip
soaked a Chase Bank rain poncho giveaway procured in email address cash
Opened a window so the natural stench of human habitation in the alley could suck down the fumes and choke
And choke
Scraped the walls through EPA approved paint to get to lead layers
She floundered on a mattress on some mental crack induced by a masked man
donned in polyester brown
‘I’d rather be fishing’ embroidered on a fat tie above a trout and he took off his belt
beat her good
like that scamp boy when he stole his sister’s ice cream cone
let that wry smile smack across his face…
42
Up the wooded hill. The crunch of footsteps among the twigs. Decaying leaves. Neon green lights intermittent on wrists. Flashlights. They caught glimpses. Footfalls. Scraped bark. The undersides of leaves among branches still vibrant aloft. Coiled rope flung over them. Soft sobs. Coiled rope returning to the earth. “D.O.C.” A man. “Camp A.” Another. Wrists bound with zip ties. The third man squirmed out of his captor’s grasp and started down the hill only to trip over a tree root hidden among the plants and in the darkness. The captor gauged his steps, as did two others unbound as they reached the man slithering, digging his feet into the dirt to propel himself down. The captor reached him and set his boot against the back of the man’s neck, pushing his face into the earth. All else becomes secondary when the air, which has not disappeared, becomes trapped before one’s lungs. The two others took a leg and dragged him back up the hill. What were muffled screams into soil shrieked. Begged. Threatened.
It was understood he would be first. They held him against the tree. At his shoulders. At his chin, yet the man would not be placated so they returned him to the earth where the rope could be applied. Face down. Suffocated. Released. Suffocated. Released, and Jeremiah slid the rope over the top of his head. The friction burned over his eyes. Wayward fibers bristled his nostrils, that odd sensation of life that he felt through the precarious moment. Stuck upon his chin then freed to broach his neck.
It was the cicadas on those hot August evenings that elicited childhood dreams in that rural America. Their droning songs in that humidity that never seemed to break. Seaweed green outer shells infused with black to match jet black eyes bugged out. Translucent wings, veiny lines enmeshed throughout at odd angles. Inch-long prehistoric reminders with thick width—perfectly designed for phobic reactions. Morning brought fear to the cicada itself. The first break of light paralyzed the ones who had not found haven. He pressed against the trees, in the blades. On pavement. On brick. Siding. He prayed that his white underside was hidden from birds swooping and squirrels bounding. The unlucky few were clamped into claws, beaks and canines, and how they screamed. A cicada in peril foretells death for a distance—how they did scream.
