I found your heart in the basement after dark. It was just sitting there, beating rapidly. Thump, thump, thumping like the drumbeat of a marching band. It’s red, fleshy tendons dancing wildly in the beating pulse. It sat in a pile of broken glass—glass from the shattered window through which you threw it, no longer attached to any brain—attached to any logic at all, and though it had no more blood to carry, it continued working. I watched the contractions as the moon gradually ascended into the sky until its blue glow lit up the organ—until the light revealed every tiny detail of its intricate tissues: veins, cells, ventricles, and atriums… an empty structure. Its rhythmic pulsing was mesmeric, beautiful even. But as I sat there watching the determined pounding of the insistent muscle, I wondered why you left your heart in my basement.

 

I had no use for it.