A Life No Longer in Infancy

Written for the Daily Flash Fiction Challenge with a word limit of 300.

The prompts: This story must contain the phrase: "Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most."

A Life No Longer in Infancy

The old man sat there quietly, listening to the young boy talk. Boy scouts had a nasty reputation of talking too much, especially this one. He was a flat tire, in the old man's opinion, so the old man had learned to drown the poor kid out.

The day of the man's 87th birthday; however, he did not let the boy talk.

"Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most."

The boy looked up from his Boy Scout note pad with a questioning look.

"What are you talking about?"

"You tell me all about your life, a life still in its infancy, yet I cannot even begin to tell you about the first 87 years of mine."

The boy did not speak, but instead sat everything down and moved from his chair to the floor in front of the old man.

"I met you last month, when your troop began visiting us, and last week when you visited, and again today. I lost my only child and wife in a car accident some years ago. I lost my youth long before that. My money diminished as my hair did and the color in my face left me long ago."

He paused and thought for a moment then let out a small sigh.

"You may think that losing all of those things may be the things I miss the most, my wife and child especially, but the one thing worse than losing them is losing the memory of them and I lost even that. The only thing I can tell you about them both is that I'll see them both again very soon."

"Why can't you remember them?" the boy asked.

The old man didn't answer.

~~~
word count- 289