Forget Magazine. Remember, Remember, Remember.

The Plan
by James Adler

She is concentrating on the plan while he drives. They are not talking.They are on that road—the one with the airport hanging indented at its end—, now he holds her hand, kisses it.

She is dreaming of something not earthly, something benign and perfect. Something she can only envision by closing her eyes—moist, they are now. Filling in each detail out of that blackness, as if by hand. She paints in that darkness; and her capacity for Great Wonder shepherds her away—if only for that brief dreaming moment—from the enormous New Reality of their predicament.

He is smoking now, like always.

Behind them is a stack of first edition books. They make the car seat a shelf; and they spill on and under the floor-mats, dirty in the back seat. Also there are small white bags of personals—drug store bags for drug store items.

The bags have been tied tight at the top; by her this time so as to avoid a repeat of an ugly scene like when they went camping in Deception Pass: they were staying with the people who had been her family and the mess had been ugly and ill-fought—damn, she thinks, were they ever pissed off at what they saw spill out of those bags.

The window is down enough for him to rest his forearm at least semi-naturally on it. He constantly flicks away the ash of what might be his last cigarette, probably not.

She can't believe it. Right now.

As she thinks about it she can't believe she used to spend her time worrying about his smoking.

Please quit, she used to say, it would mean so much to me, to us.

She wishes she could care about that right now.

She decides that if a person who was already an adult—one who definitely knew better—was to start smoking, was to find some reason, well, it might be her, now.

You started smoking, they would say.

Then she would explain the reason—explain this—and they would either say nothing or nod their heads, in complete agreement. She doesn't reach for a cigarette though, mostly because she knows he needs them all.

She closes her eyes again, this time not thinking of anything; instead just trying to focus on the plan.

The Plan.

James Adler has it all. In boxes.