Appointment in Abbottabad

Appointment in Abbottabad: Scientific American Podcast

The story is called Appointment in Samarra. A Baghdad merchant sends a servant to buy provisions. While at the market, the servant bumps into Death, who makes a threatening gesture. The servant races back to the merchant, borrows a horse and flees to the city of Samarra for safety.

The Somerset Maughan version of the old fable about fate continues, with Death narrating: “Then the merchant went down to the marketplace and he saw me standing in the crowd and he came to me and said, ‘Why did you make a threatening 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 Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.’”