Everything in the new bar gleamed. Soft music floated through the room while a sweet and cooling breeze blew through an open window behind me. Under hot lights I arranged and rearranged things so they would be just perfect for the first guests. I was glad of this chance to run the bar, however briefly, and was excited by the opportunities in this area. I felt confident its connection to the hotel would ensure a constant supply of clients. I tidied, cleaned, washed, and preened my way through the bar paraphernalia, and, having checked the conference timetable, glided majestically to the doors and flung them open.

They took their time to filter in. Small groups of two or three buying their drinks, then scurrying off to a corner for a quick pre-dinner chat. The odd uncomfortable straggler, separated from friends, more anxious than ever at intruding on other people's conviviality. Occasionally, odd creatures from the singles scene trawled through, saw there was nothing, and left for richer pickings elsewhere.

It was late by the time the first interesting cases arrived. They swaggered in, breathing confidence, and I could tell they had a fine role to play in proceedings: their suits, their bearing, even their shoes attested to their importance.

They settled themselves at the bar with the ease of conference veterans.

'What would you like?' I asked, stopping near the spirits.

'A bourbon.'

'Make that two.'

I already had them figured for bourbon drinkers, and on receiving confirmation I poured a pair of doubles, left the bottle out and placed a tray of ice on the counter.

They began to talk loudly and at length on a range of topics: the benefits of various air miles and insurance packages; the moral beatitude of wealth creation; their twin enthusiasms for brand development and soul music. Eventually, after the subtle, almost scientific application of bourbon, beer and pretzels, the Alpha Male embarked on just the sort of tale I had been awaiting.

'You're new?'

'As a matter of fact I have. I came here several years ago-- before the renovations. In fact,' he turned to his colleague, 'in fact this was where I saw Able Tubthumper: remember? From my seminar this afternoon.' 'Sure I remember. I've heard Tubthumper is great.'

'He sure is. His work on attitudinal dynamics is global best-practice. When I saw him here-- at the fourth annual "Attitude is Everything" conference-- he'd just founded the Institute and was on the circuit trying to popularise "Spiritual and Financial Healing," which I think was his third book. He was excellent, a real high-point, but the main thing I remember about that conference was the weird guy who spoke after him.

'The program indicated that there was to be brief address by the conference convenor, followed by drinks in the Franklin Wing. It was late in the day, and I know that a large section of the audience was restless. People wanted to check their e-mail and phones for messages, so the announcement that there would be an impromptu presentation was not universally welcomed.'

'Oh yeah, I hate that,' replied Echo.

'While the facilitator made the announcement a short man in a bad tweed jacket appeared quietly at the left of the stage. I knew most the participants at the conference, but didn't recognize this guy. I always make an effort to meet and remember the names of all the delegates at each conference-- my Trudeau memory course had proved invaluable in this regard.'

Echo nodded sagely here, and took mental note of the value of enhanced memory.

'The guest speaker approached the microphone. He was a round, stocky little fellow, which was quite a distinct look among the delegates, most of whom made use of the hotel gym every night. Gyms are great places for networking. You know, this one time I actually ended up on a stepper right beside the North-Eastern VP of AT&T'

I was anxious that he continue his story, so I poured another round of bourbons to break his rhythm.

'This guy - the guest speaker - wasn't in good shape, although carrying some extra pounds could have been a good look in its own way. It set him apart, got him noticed, and that's got to be a plus in this industry.'

'For sure.'

'On its own, that would have been okay, but his dress sense really did let him down. Tweed was definitely out that summer. You have to wonder about a man who can't even make an effort of the most rudimentary of trends.'

'Right.'

'Worse, the sleeves came down past his wrist and covered half his hands, an effect echoed by his pants. His moustache sat on his lip like grey mould. His hair was a receding bird's nest, a rat's habitat of brown and grey. He was an unkempt, stumpy little man and I'm sure I wasn't the onlyone disappointed by his failure to meet minimal standards of grooming-- this was an important conference and his dress was little short of insulting.

'He settled behind the microphone and it dawned on me that he had no devices.'

'No devices?'

'He had no sound equipment or graphics or anything. Not even PowerPoint. This wasn't like a proper impromptu presentation-- this looked unrehearsed, extempore. The mood of the conference was one of annoyance and irritation. This was a shabby, grubby little man - we knew from the start that he could offer us nothing we didn't already know about success.

'Ladies and Gentlemen," he began -- I remember everything he said'

'Trudeau.'

'Exactly. He said, "I won't detain you long. I'm going to tell you brief and simple story about a man named Jerry." The audience stirred restlessly. Where was the snappy, attention-grabbing start? Where was the executive summary? Now I'm as big a fan of the folksy homily technique as you could imagine, but if you're going to use that technique you've first got to establish your credentials, tell us why we should be listening.'

'Sure.'

'And this guy had none. Didn't even introduce himself. He started straight into this rambling story. He said: "Jerry B. Schwarz believed very strongly in freedom of will"

'Who doesn't?'

The Alpha Male shot him a glance indicating that he wanted a clear run, and continued his imitation of the flat-voweled guest speaker:

"In my many years I do not believe I have witnessed greater belief in the power of one's own intentionality. Life, to Jerry, was a network of choices. Every morning when he woke, he believed that he had choices to make. Choices about his dress, about his demeanour, his relationships, his life.'

This is usually frightening. Normally we recoil from choice, resorting to habitual, stereotypic behaviours to alleviate the strain of being. Children suck their thumbs when distressed. Madmen rock back and forth in their strait-jackets for comfort. You people go to work each and every week-day and fill your evenings with ritualised behaviours: a game of squash; a movie; a regular meal.

Jerry believed this "choice" presented challenges and opportunities to him. Somewhat unusually, it didn't threaten him. He had his eyes fixed on the world of human interaction, the exchange of goods and services, and simply didn't see the precipice of the existential abyss beneath his feet. Good for him.

Jerry used to annoy his more world-weary acquaintances through his relentless good humour. Every day he greeted the world with a happy smile. Every day he would help those who needed help, care for his fellow man and-- to whatever extent one sees it in any man-- love his neighbour as himself. He was kind, generous and happy, and he used to leave his friends shaking their heads in pleasantly surprised wonder.

He came to my attention around the time things started going wrong for him. Jerry and his family took his mother up to their cabin in the mountains for her sixty-fifth birthday. Jerry cooked her some canned salmon. More correctly half-cooked the canned salmon. His mother developed botulism, although Jerry didn't know it at the time. He put the difficulty in swallowing, the weakness, the dizziness, the paralysis of facial muscles, blurred vision, diarrhoea and vomiting down to something more mild-- probably just a bug she had picked up on her flight from Florida. Jerry decided not to drive her down the mountain early. she was a strong woman and the kids were enjoying themselves. Besides, Jerry and his wife Teri seldom got out of the city, so they figured they might as well make the most of it.

By the time Sunday night rolled around she was much worse. She was admitted to hospital but it was too late. Nothing could be done. Hopelessly deteriorating, her neurological system finally gave out three days later.

Even before he had buried her, he had begun to try to exorcise the memory of her final bewildered, agonized week. Jerry responded in character. He told himself he had two choices: He could choose to allow himself to feel guilt, shame, pity and regret, or he could choose to learn from the experience. Jerry chose to learn from the experience. Despite the fact that this, the death of the only person ever to love him unconditionally, was the result of his own medical-- and culinary-- ignorance, he decided that it would make him a stronger, more aware individual-- he would learn the lessons this could teach him: lessons beyond the primitive maxim "don't poison your mother." This was an accident which could have happened to anyone, and the correct response was for him to play the hand dealt him by fate as well as he could. One could only agree with him. It was rotten luck.

Few things could knock Jerry back for long, and he soon recovered his equanimity. He did actually use it as a learning experience and an opportunity for further growth. He rewrote his personal mission statement. He vowed to become more loving, more inspiring, more impactful in his life, especially to his family.

'Impactful is good,' Echo added helpfully, sipping his bourbon.

"While Jerry was in his den, drafting and re-drafting his mission statement to capture the intensity, the focus, the charisma of a middle manager on the rise, his wife, Teri, was in the living room finishing the last of the gin.

She had long been depressed by Jerry's refusal to deal with the more dissonant aspects of his conception of the world. She struggled mightily with his ability to attribute all triumphs and small failures to acts of free will, but to assign meso- and macro-scale failures to fate or circumstance. Even worse was his almost sybaritic ability to see the best in any situation-- if Jerry won, it was his doing and he would savour the victory. If he lost, it was no matter, he would learn from it and emerge wiser but no sadder. His twisted ability to see win/win situations in overseas famines, in genocide, in the face of abject cruelty, manifested itself to Teri in monstrous and recurrent nightly images.

Some months after Jerry inadvertently poisoned his mother Teri sat the final exams for her MBA. She failed. She was disappointed, but not unreasonably so. It was only when her husband pointed out that this, the most recent chapter in an almost uninterrupted series of academic failures, had occurred because she had not applied herself diligently enough, that she began to slide. Jerry was sure that Teri could learn form this, break the habit of under performance, and emerge happier, therefore better, on the other side.

The other side did indeed begin to dominate Teri's thoughts. With Jerry carping incessantly about choice, will and volition, she began to long for peace, any sort of peace. The MBA result didn't matter, she knew that. What mattered was Jerry's inhuman good-humour. In the end it was probably this, his relentless, maliciously selective optimism, and his failure to construct a genuinely human mental metric for the judgement of actions-- which drove her to drink the half-bottle of Drano.

He requested a transfer, to take time out. He knew that if he could just stand back a little he could apply his peculiarly deterministic volition to the problem. Jerry said: "I have two choices: I can either choose to see this as a deep, crushing personal loss, the voluntary death of the my life's partner, the only woman I truly loved, or I can choose to see it as one of the greatest lessons I can learn-- part of a deepening understanding of life, part of a process.

Jerry set to work. He talked with doctors and learned as much as he could about his wife's mental predicament. He did not resent her abandonment of his family. He pitied her inability to transcend her fatalism. He surprised me by feeling regret. He regretted that she had not experienced the kind of everyday epiphany he to which he had grown so accustomed. He wished-- he wished so desperately-- that she could have experienced a Paradigm Shift.

Jerry reconstructed his life as best he could. He visited the best analysts money could buy, while his children went to live with his brother in Elphinstone, Kansas. He purchased a set of motivational tapes to make sure he stayed sunny side up. The tapes contained affirmations of self, tailored to each individual's needs: "Circle of influence/circle of control" for Jerry, "I am a great person" for daughter Kerry, "Mommy's in heaven with the angels" for little Jerry Jr.

At night the remaining family members lay each in the prison of their own beds, drowning in sweet platitudes the terrifying anguish and hateful doubt they faced in the wake of Teri's suicide - Prozac of the cortex pre-empting nightmares of the soul."

The Alpha Male gulped down his bourbon, which had been warming in his hand and signalled for another. I obliged discreetly, not wanting to break his rhythm.

"I tried to warn Jerry. I tried to communicate to him the necessary conclusions of his actions.' The guy-- the guest speaker-- laughed, sort of chuckled, which seemed very insensitive to me, but then said: 'But Jerry held true to his course. He held true to his convictions and yielded not to adversity. Good for him."

'Sure. Good for Jerry,' replied Echo, less surely than before.

"Three months later Jerry was staying in a cheap hotel in Marburg, Germany, when the bell-boy handed him a note. His brother, Gerry, had sold Jerry's children to a certain entrepreneurial film-maker in Belgium to pay off outstanding gambling debts. Pieces of the children were found scattered under most of the rooms of their final residence. Jerry found little solace in the fact that his children, or rather their violent and salacious deaths, lived on among the darker reaches of the Internet.

Jerry was inconsolable. Any man would be. He resigned his position and went travelling to find himself. This wasn't like the other choices he had faced. He began, for the first time since he was at college, to question whether or not he really had a choice in life. Doubts multiplied in his mind, spreading like disease across his neural network. He questioned his faith, his freedom, his will to live. How could his God abandon him so? Why were these evil things dogging him like Greek Furies? Could he have prevented the deaths of his beloved ones? He tests us. Quirks of probability. No, of course not.

Jerry cured himself of doubt. This is a remarkable, if questionable achievement. He roamed, visiting South America, the Middle East, finally Africa in search of something. Fleeing something else.

Jerry's impeccable timing had not deserted him. Within a month a new, savagely virulent haemorrhagic fever crept from the jungle. With relentless organic logic it sped across borders and chased its prey. A chance wiped nose and shaken hand communicated it to Jerry as he tried to help those in need.

(The Guest Speaker positioned himself squarely behind the podium and prepared for his final assault.)

"I want you to see this final scene very clearly, ladies and gentlemen. I want you to see Jerry lying there in his filthy little hospital cot. I want you to see dark blood seeping through his skin, clotting around his nose and mouth; blood flowing in streams of vermilion tears from his eyes. I want you to see Jerry lying there in his blood and his monstrous arrogance.

I want you to see Jerry lying there telling himself that he had a choice: Believing he could slide quietly into death or will his own survival, mind over virus. While Jerry was trying to be pro-active and tell himself to be positive, his organs were liquefying. While he was trying to affirm his sphere of influence, his lungs collapsed and he drowned in the detritus of his own cardiovascular system.

(The guest speaker paused, admiring the horrified, hostile audience.) "Ladies and gentlemen," continued the Guest Speaker, "I am God. Jerry Schwarz was wrong: you don't get to choose. I do."

The alpha male finished his final bourbon and dropped some change by way of a tip. He nodded a curt farewell, got up off the barstool and smiled with boundless conceit at his companion.

'Unbelievable,' muttered Echo, falling in the space between practiced responses.

I watched them leave, suppressing a smile. How were they to know, how were they to incorporate, the manifestation of the Word made Flesh in the terrestrial form of a long dead, half remembered calculus lecturer from the other side of the world?

As Echo reached the door he paused, turned around and stared very hard at me. I waved him a cheery goodbye. Still feeling his eyes boring into me, I removed the ice from beneath the light and closed the bar before it dissolved.

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