Out of Business: Out of Memory

Harry’s Memory

Harry could not remember. His memory drew a blank.

“You don’t even remember the question, do you dear?”

Mary could not make Harry understand. “Oh you,” she snapped in exasperation. “Constance. The other love of your life. Constance, the sexy one. You know, your fiancee before me. You swore you’d never miss her funeral. And it’s tomorrow!”

She was rewarded with a blank stare.

“Oh! You’d forget your head if it wasn’t glued on.” She shook her head at this use of this cliché. “Ooo!  What can you do? Be right or be happy, they tell me. Riiiiiight.”

She walked away. She walked back. “Anyway, Harry, don’t forget to put out the garbage.”

Harry went into a tizzy. He began to open drawers, examine the statuettes and vases on the sideboard. He looked under things. Then he went into the den and closed the door.

Mary knew better than try to stop him. This new phase of Harry’s was as confusing to Mary as it apparently was for him. She walked away, muttering, half to herself, half to Harry. “Oh Harry, you’re going to forget again. What is so difficult about carry a couple of light bags to the curb?”

What Harry saw in his mind’s eye was the huge pile of garbage he’d seen as a child beside the barn.

“You forgot? What a load of garbage,” his dad said in disgust.
The tiny but already gangly Harry blinked. “Why can’t you believe me, Daddy? I can’t move all that stuff all by myself. And I—”
His dad pointed to a flat, filthy surface mounted on two ski-shaped runners. “What do you call that?”
Still confused, Harry replied with a shaky voice, “Stoneboat.”
“Stoneboat! Now get this load of garbage out of here. One load at a time.”
“But I promised Shirley swimming lessons.”
“Swimming lessons! Be damned. I never heard such a load of garbage in my life.”

When Mary returned to the living room, Harry was crumpled on the floor beside a box; its contents were spilled across the floor. He was crying. Mary hurried to him, dropped to the floor and hugged him with the usual soothing and concerned words.

Harry held out a photograph. Mary took it and held it out to focus. It was a picture of a very stern farmer dressed in overalls towering over a small but gangly looking boy pitchforking manure from a big, steaming,  pile beside the barn onto a stoneboat.

“Oh, Harry. I’m so sorry. This is from your private picture box, isn’t it?”

Harry nodded.

“I didn’t know.”

Harry snuggled into her arms and dropped his head onto her chest. Mary cuddled him back. They sat there for a while. Then Mary sang the song that Harry had sung to two generations of offspring: All things Bright and Beautiful

All things bright and beautiful,
all creatures great and small,
all things wise and wonderful,
the Lord God made them all.

It was the song that had brought them together.
CREDIT:   http://www.deviantart.com/art/Out-of-bussiness-333414616