>I proceeded to window number two. It showed a burning. Eight stakes were lined up diagonally across the image. To these, men and women were bound, enveloped in smoke and flames that licked them from all sides. Against an enamel blue sky, the red flames swirled around the condemned. The sun shone on the window and made the fire eerily realistic. The yellow light landed on me, I felt its warmth over me. I looked at my hands. It looked like they were on fire.



>The strange thing was that they could have lived. The rescue was there all along, on the ground right in front of their eyes. A fumi-e, an icon of Mary or Christ that they could trample on at any time to prove their recantation. It was not their lives that the shogun's henchmen demanded, only their apostasy. But the martyrs preferred the pain, to suffer and be tortured, even though salvation and freedom were within reach. So easy to just trample. So easy to just give up.



>To die for one's faith. Refuse abjuration. Endure torture and humiliation for their beliefs, even though salvation was obviously never going to come. An insane endeavour, delusional and disgusting. To a modern man it was bewildering. Revolting, even. Was there even anything in our age worth suffering and dying for? Anything, at all? I couldn't think of anything. Martyrdom as an idea was incomprehensible to me and, frankly, a little stupid. There are limits to what a person can endure. Hang someone upside down in a dark hole long enough, and anyone steps on God's face. Even Jesus' disciples doubted and denied. It is natural.



>It occurred to me that some of the so-called martyrs at Unzen had also done so. They were not allowed to be in the picture, of course, but they had certainly been there. I was sure of it. Those who gave in, who through bitter tears stepped on what they thought was the best and most beautiful, just because they were cowardly and afraid. Their history remained unwritten, but I knew they had existed. Those who preferred life, spared themselves, and put their own flesh first, because they could endure no longer. I could understand them. I could forgive them.

weeb faggot

>>21935696 (OP)

Who is that balding old man?

I think he's a Swedish author who wrote about how weebs who move to Japan will be gaijin forever or something like that.

bit rude

He's 30.

>>21935696 (OP)

Thanks, I liked it.

>>21935696 (OP)

Delete this photo of me

Looks like he's in his 50s. I'd kill myself if I looked like that.

Sorry. Working on it.

You might have autism

this guy's writing style is unbearable.

Why?



(Excuse the shitty translation, I just threw it through Google Translate and swapped out a few words.)

>>21935696 (OP)

>I am the stoic unfeeling Nordic intellectual man. My insights are cool and calculated, profound and detailed. The precision with which I forensically detail the spirit is that of a coroner. Can't you read the dispassionate distance on my face? 



Lol queer.

I know an autist and he looks like >>21935696 (OP)
