The Fat Man

"It's a common thought experiment," Jake said.  "If you saw five innocent people about to die, and you could save them by killing one person, should you do it?  People don't mind throwing a switch to divert a rushing minecart from a track with five workers to a track with one, but they recoil from pushing a fat man in front of the cart to derail it.  Should they?"

The man's eyes, leaking tears, stared up at Jake.  He teetered on the edge of the cliff.

"I ask purely rhetorically, of course," Jake said.  He set his foot and pushed.