Once Upon A Time by Anonymous

Long ago there was a famous Mistress in Bagdad who sent her slave to market to buy provisions and in a little while the slave came back, white and trembling, and said, ‘Mistress, just now when I was in the marketplace I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw it was Death that jostled me.  She looked at me and made a threatening gesture,. Now, please Mistress lend me your horse, and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate.  I will go to Samarra and there Death will not find me’.  The Mistress felt sorry for her favourite slave whom she loved and lent him her horse, and the slave mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he went.  Then the Mistress went down to the marketplace and she saw me standing in the crowd and she came to me and said, ‘Why did you make a threating gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning?’  ‘That was not a threatening gesture’, I said, ‘it was only a start of surprise.  I was astonished to see him in Bagdad, for I have an appointment with him. Tonight. In Samarra.’