My aunt returned from her trip to Japan last Thursday. She was only gone a little over a week and yet, now that she’s back, I’m having a hard time adjusting.

Home has been a bit chaotic which is driving my stress level and anxiety higher. I have proof as my smartwatch’s stress monitor agrees, my stress level has been on the rise the last couple of days. The two of them – my mom and aunt – it’s like they are constantly competing who’s the loudest. We are in the same room, can’t we speak at a normal volume? I mean, I can hear them out in the streets, through double-pane glass windows, for crying out loud.

My aunt also has a voice that’s piercing and obnoxious, something that can hurt ears and break glass.

My aunt spent 6 days in Saitama, Japan. 3 nights were spent seeing a figure-skating show called “Ice Story.” I should mention that all 3 shows are the same and she has watched this very show about half-of-a-dozen times on Disney Plus prior to seeing it live? It’s a 3-hour show. I’ve watched about the first 30 minutes and honestly, I don’t see appeal of why my aunt is obsessed with this.

Last night, she handed me a book. It’s the story of which the show is based off of. She tried translating the story into Chinese and told me that it was “deep” and that the translation didn’t make sense. The story was originally written in Japanese and to have it professionally translated to English and still makes sense is impressive enough. I doubt Google translate will do it justice.

I read the 47-page story in about an hour. It took me on an adventure, sure, but deep, I don’t think so. It’s a story about a post-apocalyptic world. The human race had been wiped out by war, climate change, and illnesses.

The lone survivor was the first successful humanoid, who was human with a terminal disease until his DNA was modified. Unfortunately, when he woke up, he had no memories of where he was or who he was or what happened to the world.

As the story went on, he would learn that he was created for one purpose, and that’s to record sound. As he journeyed on, he would ask some existential questions like what was the world like prior to the destruction and what is the purpose of life and what was humans like.

I’ll have to admit that though I enjoyed the story, there were some cohesive issue with the story like how can someone with no memories suddenly ask such questions? It also felt like the writer prioritized the ice skating routine over the writing of the story as parts of the story did not make sense whatsoever. Maybe there was a gap in translation? Who knows.

Well, at least now I understand the story without needing to decipher the ice-skating routine.