Inside Out reImagined

Thoughts about School

At last, Riley and Mom were back where they started — a place that would at least start to be ingrained in Riley's mind as "home" — and ready to learn the way to Riley's school, together.

There would, no doubt, be some sort of memorization problem, as the sun had fully set and the landscape looked quite different from what it would look like on a typical day. To counter this, Joy — as much as she just didn't want to play any role in the rest of Riley's day — went ahead and inserted some Daydreams which turned the dark and gloomy night into a bright and sunny day; even if there was no guarantee that such a day would even happen in Shanghai, it was just nicer to look at.

Throughout it all, Fear was diligently taking Mental Notes, aiming to get at the landscape from every angle possible. However, the only effect on the outside world wasn't a particularly desirable one — Riley kept spinning around and looking nervously, not really achieving much in learning about her surroundings due to all the paranoia.

"I'm right here, don't worry. Just... hold my hand, okay? You don't need to spin around so much, you get lost!" Mom spoke, only certifying that Riley had made a fool of herself — again.

Sadness stepped in, and at her direction, Riley said, taking her mother's hand: "Yes... of course..."

From that point on, Fear was a bit less jittery, him and Sadness coming to complement each other fairly well in this situation. With the two working at it together, Riley no longer looked perpetually uncertain of herself, and instead, looked like a calm and confident planner, almost like a spy. This notion — Riley as a covert operative for America — would greatly please Fear on any other occasion, but right now, he continued to be focused on creating enough resources so that a full mental map could be made during the night.

All the while, the other emotions were mostly focused on the Consciousness Screen. While Joy still considered herself mostly down for the count, both Anger and Disgust occasionally hit the console, indistinctly murmuring, yet nevertheless causing Mental Notes to roll in, even though the Note itself didn't make it clear who it was made by.

Finally, Riley and Mom arrived at the destination. It was unmistakable for anything else — though many other buildings, especially those belonging to state services, carried the Chinese flag, this one had almost an entire front yard dedicated to the flag and other communist symbols, coupled with themes, on the murals on the walls, that almost celebrated adolescence and becoming one with society as a whole.

Disgust loudly cringed, not understanding why all of this was necessary, except for propaganda reasons. Most of the others, however, merely stood and stared, hoping to eventually know the school building by sight, even without a single memory being necessary.

Sadness, on the other hand, patiently waited and listened for nothing in particular.

"So! This, I believe, will be your school!" Mom started speaking, hoping to get Riley to respond. "Lessons don't quite start yet — I believe that'll be two or three weeks down the line — but there's this whole thing where they'll greet the international student — that's you! Isn't this exciting?"

With this, Sadness supposed that she had a plausible explanation on what she was listening for — and more importantly, how to respond. She had already somewhat learned from the previous mistakes of making Riley all apologetic, and her hands naturally moved towards a new sequence of inputs on the console that should do the trick.

She couldn't do it alone, though. The mention of "exciting" was something that really called for Joy to at least have a verdict. However, just one glance revealed that Joy was nowhere near ready to do her duties, and Sadness faced the task alone, knowing that there was still a small chance of backfire.