. . .

The police return Edmund’s heart, respectfully, to Mr. Gulley.

They marvel — as he marvels, though he does not admit it — that even without the heart, his little Edmund is still alive.

“Should we put it back in?” Mr. Gulley asks a doctor, but the doctor just gives him a wild look, as if to say:

We have already transcended medicine.

A second opinion ventures: “I . . . I wouldn’t. Because in the absence of any information it is better to not intervene.”

So they build a wall around the heart and they leave it be.

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