…goes the trolley, clang, clang, clang goes the warning bell, and Sophia looks on in horror as the bright red trolley barrels out of control, coming toward her too fast, too impossibly fast. She can see the wide-eyed operator applying the brake with all his strength, and great sparks fly up from the wheels. She hears screaming from behind her, and in making a half turn in nightmarish slow motion, she realizes her hand is grasping a lever. Five people, prisoners, are bound and lying across the track about a hundred feet down. They cry and plead with her to throw the switch, for God’s sake, throw the switch, send the trolley onto the other track. The trolley can’t stop in time. She knows this. There will be horrific injuries. So, she compresses the handle release just in time to notice a single person unconscious on the other track, too close to the switch and the trolley for there to be any uncertainty that sending the trolley down that path means certain death. She feels an urge, an absolute imperative, to be good to make the right decision, to somehow make the best possible decision. At the last instant, she pulls the lever. As the trolly rushes past and toward the doomed sleeper, the scene freezes. Everything is black.
Ding, ding, ding goes the trolley, the warning bell clanging wildly, and Sophia looks on in horror as the bright red trolley barrels out of control, coming at her too fast. Taking in the bizarre scene of the five bound people begging and screaming for mercy, of the lone sleeper who will surely die if the track is good, to make and she grasps the handle release of the switch lever… but lets the trolley pass unmolested, injuring the five terribly. There are screams and groans and wailing from the injured as the scene freezes. Everything is black.
