'Death Speaks'

The only guarantees in life, as the saying goes, is death and taxes.

Yet despite these absolute guarantees we always feel annoyed when we look at our payslip at the end of every month to see how much we’re being fucked by the Chancellor and overcome by that sense of shock and despair at the loss of a loved one.

In spite of these unavoidable occurrences our sense of surprise never seems to diminish when they do occur.

I recently had a chat with a friend about the idea of regret and that vacuous cliché that “hindsight is a wonderful thing…” blah blah blah managed to find its way into the conversation.

But a telling point is made when you think, how are you expected to ‘go back’ and rectify something you did or didn’t do if the intelligence and life experience that you had at that time is the very reason that led you to make that choice which is leading to that sense of regret?

Which is very interesting, as the idea that we are indeed fallible as human beings and our fallibility is almost inevitable and predestined.

As I was walking home from the hospital recently I remembered this brilliant short by the brilliant Somerset Maugham entitled, ‘Death Speaks’;

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; Master, 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.