When I was still living in the old country, my family used to take drives all over the place, especcially in the summer. After some time we eventually ended up near the Carpathians, where it was wonderful to camp. Coming upon a sheer mountain face, my 10 year old eyes saw two jutting crystals on the mountain face. I remember telling my mother how pretty they were, and to take a picture. She replied that we were out of film and continued evading my pleas. At last she relented and said: "Do you know why I'm refusing to take a picture? It's out of respect for God's will."
I told her I did not understand.
The explained that those two rocks used to be the living forms of a sister and a brother who loved each other very much, this is why He turned the young lovers to crystal.
I was confused at this, since I loved my sister more then anyone else (even my mother), and so I told her that this made no sense. I told her I loved my sister too.
She laughed and said: "You have not loved her like these two."
I still told her it made no sense. "Why would God punish love?", I asked.
My mother said she did not know…

I have spent tree whole summers looking for an answer to my question: "Why would god punish love?"
I have asked everyone I could from Timisoara to Vrsac and in every city, town and mountain village someone knew the legend.
But no one could answer my question, other then saying it was evil, or a sin. But I simply asked them: "How is love evil? How is it a sin?"

They would fall silent and I would leave without drinking my rakija, in silence.

I did not know my answer for the longest time, and have almost given up searching. I still traveled however and everywhere I went (be it japan, india, ethiopia or north america) the culture of that area has their own rock, with their own story of the sin and the punishment. Different gods and different rocks, but the sin remained as elusive and unexplainable as ever.

And still my question was unanswered, not until I went to Japan with my sister, and we visited the Izumo shrine. After we were done we walked to a local restaurant that had music and served excellent soba.
It was there that we met a young man, Shigeru, whose cousin was a monk. He owned a small farm, barely enough for him, and did cleaning work at the restaurant when growing season was over.

My sister had the idea to ask him about the question that has plagued me all these years, and so I did. He chuckled and told me that there was a shrine for two wedded siblings, cursed to be reborn again and again in unfavorable situations. He told us the reason they were made an example of was not because of anything evil they had done, but because the gods envied the perfection of their love and it amused them to break it apart.

What do you think?

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I'm not really pro-incest (though I'm not really against it either, so long as it's not harmful to either of those involved), but this was a beautiful story :)

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I think you should stop reading manga as your story resembles one a little to much.

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@70,035

Are you saying it's not true or just that it sounds like a manga, because even if it isn't I've heard much stranger things that turned out to be true.

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dude im not really for incest but..is god against it? i mean according to the bible, we are all products of incest.

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@70,035

Well its true, I challenge you to find a manga like this

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