The Lever Dilemma

I suppose it could happen to anyone. It’s unlikely, but not impossible. Anyone could happen by a lever by chance. Some people are more likely to than others, naturally, but it could happen.

In natural existence, I generally recommend not pulling the lever. If you don’t know what it does, at least. Even if you do know, there might be repercussions if you are not in ownership of the lever, or if you haven’t obtained permission to change the geotemporal location of most of the lever.

If it is your lever and you know what it does and you intend for it to do what it is meant to do, by all means, pull it whenever you wish.

But that’s not the sort of lever that I happened upon in this tale. I don’t really know who the rightful owner of the Lever was. I might be able to research the name, but I don’t think it really matters. The important factor regarding this lever is not its owner or even really its purpose. The important bit about this lever is whether or not I should have pulled it. I still don’t know.

It was the sort of lever that one doesn’t normally have access to. It was located in the middle of a crowded boulevard, but surrounded by a chunky iron and wire fence and elevated above the average person’s eye level by a set of 8 steep metal stairs. The stairs were the sort with little spikes surrounding gaping holes in the mesh so as to prevent slipping of a utility worker in inclement weather. I’d walked past it many times, but had never been tempted to ascend the stairs and so much as touch the handle. That day was different, of course.

It was the first really fair day in spring, and the streets were stuffed on that Sunday afternoon with cheerful running children, peppy horses pulling carriages, dapper fellows tossing melting slush balls, and grinning ladies testing out their spring jackets. I suppose there were other people too, but the sort that I remember best were the grim police officers, some on foot, and some on staunch horses, all shouting gruffly to make way as somewhere there had been a bit of tomfoolery and suspicious activity. I can’t really blame them though for my curiosity and hesitance to be crushed by the throng of prospective spectators. Besides, I wasn’t the only one to climb those crusty steps that day to get a view of the new trolley car. I was simply the only one there at the wrong time. Or perhaps it was the right time, depending on how you look at it.

Perhaps one could say that I actually saved a life rather than that I killed those people. It doesn’t really matter though. One way or the other, someone most likely would have died at the expense of someone else. And no matter which it was, I would have felt at fault.