Foreman turned to me at this point.

"It's obvious that McCarthy has chosen a stoic silence as his response. This is called 'passive aggressive' behavior. It is also a form of bargaining, because he thinks that by doing it he will be able to get me to do something that will be more appropriate to his survival." Foreman studied me thoughtfully for a long moment, then announced to the entire room. "No, I don't think so."

The way he said it, we all laughed, even me. But we were still bargaining.

Theme six: Isn't McCarthy more valuable alive than dead?

"This isn't about McCarthy's value. This is about McCarthy's death."

Theme seven: Well, if you're so committed to killing McCarthy, then why haven't you gotten it over with already?

"Because we haven't finished going through all the stages of the process. There are five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. They're not always as clear and distinct as we see them here, and they don't always occur in the same order. Sometimes there's a lot of overlap too. Sometimes you'll flip back and forth between two stages for a while. Sometimes you'll go through one of the stages so fast you won't even notice it. But in here, the way this process is conducted, you will experience all five stages of the process. Whoops, there's a little anger now. . . ."

Theme eight: This is unfair.

"So? What's your point?"

Theme nine: What is the point of killing just McCarthy? Who's going through this process? McCarthy or the rest of us? If the process is about all of us, as you say, shouldn't you be threatening all of us?

This particular argument triggered no small amount of consternation in the room. "Don't give him any ideas!" someone shouted. Others took it more seriously; they were afraid that Foreman might feel it necessary to expand the focus of the exercise.

Foreman waited until the room quieted down before he answered the question.

"The process is about all of us. Everybody in this room is doing The Survival Process. You are doing the process. I am doing the process. The Course Manager is doing the process. McCarthy is doing the process. As for how many people should or shouldn't die today-McCarthy is the focus for this exercise. There is no need to expand the focus. The truth is, everybody dies alone."

I noticed something now, something about Foreman, something about the way he was talking, something about the training and the way everyone was responding now: we had all become deadly serious. There were no more jokes, no more clever remarks, no more entertaining tangents.

Now we were talking seriously about death. It was a reality in the room.

The process would continue until I died.

That's when the red-haired boy stood up. He was only eighteen. Foreman looked over at him. "Yes? Parent?"

"I volunteer to take McCarthy's place."

"You do?"

"Yes, I do."

"Why? What do you hope to accomplish?"

"McCarthy doesn't want to die. I don't care if I do or not. Everything I have to live for is gone."

"There's an assumption in there that McCarthy doesn't want to die-but it's a fair assumption. However, it's irrelevant whether McCarthy wants to die or not. He doesn't get a vote in the matter. Neither do you. And you'll get your turn to die when you get your turn. Sit down."

Parent didn't sit down. "You, yourself, said that it didn't matter who was the focus. I insist that you use me instead. I'm willing to die. McCarthy isn't. That's at least a lot more fair, isn't it?"

"This isn't about fairness. What's your point?"

"My point is just that. You've agreed that this isn't fair, that life is precious, that every human being is special and unique. Well, that means that the responsibility falls on each and every one of us to do whatever he or she can to make it all a little bit less unfair. This is something we can do something about. This is something we do get a vote on."

Foreman nodded thoughtfully. Parent's words had apparently touched something in him. He acknowledged, "You have part of it. You're getting there. First, I never agreed that this is unfair. Death is very fair. It takes everybody. Young. Old. Rich. Poor. What's fairer than that?

"As for how precious life is, on this planet life is abundant. Nature wastes lives. Life is abundant so it can feed on itself. Nothing lives except by feeding on the death of something else; so death is just as abundant as life. The myth that each life is precious or unique is a misunderstanding of nature. The uniqueness of each life is merely an effect of nature's need to spawn life in infinite variety; the fact that a life is unique guarantees it no special favors or privileges. Every life has to compete against the same hostile universe. Only those that win the competition win the right to pass on their genes. That's the short version; I won't go into detail about the various games that life plays on itself to guarantee that this or that set of genes will be given the opportunity to reproduce; that's another seminar. But if you must look at this from a sociobiological point of view, even this is-evolution in action. We're just removing the carrier of some very unlucky genes from the gene pool." The way he said it, it wasn't a joke.

Parent remained standing.

"'Every man's death diminishes me,"' he quoted.

"John Donne. 'Therefore ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.' So, what?" asked Foreman.

"So, if you're going to kill McCarthy, you have to kill me too." Parent was resolute.

Somebody applauded. And then somebody else. And then abruptly, the whole room was applauding.

A woman near Parent stood up, still applauding. Then a man. Then two more men.

And then, the whole room was standing and applauding. It went on and on and on.

They were applauding Parent. They were applauding me. They were applauding themselves.

I was moved beyond words. The tears ran down my cheeks and I couldn't begin to tell you what the emotion was. Maybe it was joy, but nobody ever felt joy like this in the face of death. It was . . . unity.

I stood up and begin applauding too. Foreman was wrong.

I wasn't going to die alone.

And then finally, after several exhilarating centuries, the applause began to die away.

Foreman had waited until we were through. He had made no attempt to stop us or slow us down. He let us expend our energies in a gaudy release of all our pent-up feelings.

"Thank you," he said. He did not tell us to sit down. "Thank you for that display of unity. But . . . ," he spoke thoughtfully now. "How am I supposed to interpret this demonstration? Is it a vote of agreement for Parent's stand? Or mere approval that he's letting the rest of you off the hook?"

Foreman counted off on his fingers. "I see three possibilities here. One, that you don't care. You only took advantage of the opportunity to applaud as a chance to get out of your chairs and stretch."

There was some laughter at this remark.

"I think not," Foreman said. "Second possibility: that you are impressed with Parent's courage, his willingness to take a stand. He gets to be a hero and I'm appointed the villain by default. A nice ploy on Parent's part. He gets to be right. I get to be wrong. It doesn't change anything. Parent gets to look good. You get to stand up and applaud and vote on it. But nothing is changed. We're still in the process. McCarthy is still going to die. And I think we're far enough along that you all know that. I think Parent knows it too. I think Parent is absolutely serious and totally sincere in everything he has said here. So, I'm going to discard this possibility too; because it diminishes us. All of us.

"That leaves us with the third possibility. That all of you are standing because you think a display of unity will change the results. I am impressed with the display. It will not change the results."