“Death Speaks” is an exceptional short story I found in the beginning of one of the novels I read recently and it so moved me that I decided to post it here. It was originally translated from Arabic, and despite extensive research the author remains anonymous though the tale has appeared in several books. Death Speaks emphasizes on the power of one’s fate. I hope everyone likes this short story. Here it goes:
“There was a merchant in Baghdad who sent his servant to market to buy provisions and in a little while the servant came back, white and trembling, and said, Master, just now when I was in the market place 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 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 merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he went. Then the merchant went down to the market-place 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”
There is a quotation, "Fate is the endless chain of causation, whereby things are; the reason or formula by which the world goes on."
