A merchant in Teheran sees a stranger in the bazaar one morning. The strange carries a scythe, while looking towards him and raising his hand.
Startled, the merchant runs to a friend: „Help me, my dear, I've just seeing Death and he is ready to take me. I must flee!“
The friend gives him his fastest horse. The merchant races on the animals back, all day, all the way to Isfahan. Late in the evening, he arrives there. tired and exhausted. He looks for an hotel and enters his room - and is encountering death, sitting on a chair, again. "Oh, no, you're here! In this room!", he shouts out. "How could you find me when you threatened me just this morning in Teheran?"
„I haven't threatened you at all,“, Death replies. "I was astonished: How can it be that I see you in Teheran this morning when I have orders to pick you up here in Isfahan this evening?"
(adopted from Anthony de Mello, 1930)