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.’”


I was reminded of this story by a detail in the accounts of the killing of Osama Bin Laden: his opulent hiding place had no telephone or internet service. Presumably to minimize the risk of revealing his location through contact with the outside world. But the very lack of such modern technology, intended to avoid attention, attracted it instead. And enabled authorities to keep their long-standing appointment.

凌乱了。。。。

      

看不懂。。。

      

那我就蹩脚的翻译一下。。
巴格达的一个商人让他的仆人去商场进货，仆人去商场的时候碰到了死神，死神做了一个威胁的手势。仆人很害怕，赶紧跑回商人那里，借了一匹马，逃到了萨拉马城。
然后商人就赶紧去了商场，碰到死神，说：你今天早上见到我的仆人的时候为什么要做出威胁的手势？ 死神说：我没有威胁他啊，我只是今天在巴格达看到他很惊讶，因为我今天晚上和他在萨拉马城有一个约好的见面的。

在了解了拉登的死亡的一些细节后，我想到了这个故事。拉登住的地方没有任何通信工具网络工具，是为了防止和外界联系时泄露自己的住处。但是缺乏通信工具反而更容易吸引注意力，而美国当局也就迟早是要找到拉登了（或者说美国当局与拉登的会面是早就确定下来的事了）


我只是觉得这个寓言很好玩，至于后面的联想好像挺牵强的。感觉就是说拉登的死是一种fate吧。