Publisher's Synopsis
A loyal samurai. An impossible order.
In a silent forest clearing, a lone samurai kneels and waits - for death, for judgment, for the return of the master who commanded this fate. Bound by honor and a final order, he is to commit seppuku (ritual suicide) once his lord arrives to witness it. Day melts into night as he remains motionless, a blade in his lap and doubt blossoms in his heart. Every rustle of leaves reminds him of the life he must surrender; every breath tastes of steel and fear.
As hours stretch on, the samurai grapples with the ghosts of his past and the weight of obedience. Memories of battle, blood, and betrayal flood the silence. Duty is supposed to be absolute - loyalty unto death - but in this endless waiting, he begins to question if blind obedience is truly noble or merely a coward's escape. Alone with his guilt under the watchful trees, he sifts through regret and resolve. He recalls the trust he placed in his master, now shaken, and the innocent ideals he once believed in. In the stillness, his soul lays itself bare: honor clashes with despair, faith with fury.
Starving the Boy: Forest Death Order is a haunting, philosophical journey into the heart of a warrior's final stand. This minimalist novella unfolds like a meditation more than a conventional tale - lyrical in its starkness and profound in its depth. Reminiscent of the spiritual questioning of Silence, the bleak beauty of The Road, and the moral intensity of Harakiri, it explores the struggle between duty and conscience, silence and inner turmoil, and the faint hope that suffering and guilt need not be the end of the story.
"A man waits to die, that's the story, and somehow it says more than books ten times its size. There's truth in here, the kind you don't find unless you've suffered. I felt like every moment was a wound and a gift. It's quiet, restrained, and brutal in its honesty. You don't read it to be entertained, you read it to remember something." - A personal friend of the author.
