Inside Out reImagined

Riley is informed

To say that Riley's first day in China was a serious test of Joy's "all happiness, all the time" mentality would have been a gross understatement. The other emotions had plenty of opportunities to point out that adaptation was going to be a much bigger trouble than initially thought, with the language barrier easily being the biggest obstacle.

And to be fair, Joy saw where the other emotions were coming from.

Yet, she reminded herself, it was all temporary. Whenever setbacks occurred, they would be overcome, and the successive ones would be less difficult. The language, too, would have to be learned, but this could be taken one character at a time, and once Riley was fluent, she would make lots of friends, just like back in America. Today, the emotions were, in a way, at rock bottom, and the only way to go from here was up.

However, all of this remained a theoretical concern, far surpassed in importance by a practical one: both Riley and her mother were tired to no end.

Once the two returned to the apartment building, Riley had no energy to run upstairs, or even walk upstairs, anymore. She simply stayed by her mother's side, like a good girl would, for the entire process of getting home: the brief shuttle from the first to the fourteenth floor, the walk to the appropriate door, Mom unlocking the door, the two stepping in and Mom locking the door behind the two. Even this came as a struggle, as Riley's eyes were no longer able to focus, making it harder for the emotions to tell what was going on — and easier to just assume the indistinct shapes were an artwork in and of itself.

"You know, blurry lights are more pretty than I initially thought." Joy commented.

"Yeah, we'd better go for a good night's sleep, and I do mean a good one," Fear added. The other emotions only nodded, to themselves and to each other, and let Joy, easily the least tired of them all, drive for now.

In principle, it was simple. Take off Riley's shoes, locate the sleeping bag, squirm in, appreciate the rudimentary amount of comfort that the sleeping bag gives, close her eyes, wait for the sun to set outside Headquarters, done, everyone can leave except for the designated Dream Duty emotion. In practice, however, there were still factors unaccounted for, including Imagination.

How could Imagination, so useful and even magical to Joy, suddenly become a nuisance to her, you ask? Well, the answer lay in the fact that it wasn't just commanded by the emotions; it could also act upon its own, especially when the view on the Consciousness Screen just refused to coalesce into definite shapes on its own.

Thus, blurry lights and darker-than-usual shadows suddenly became apparitions, resembling animals and monsters, and though most emotions ignored them, Fear couldn't handle it and ran up to the console, frantically hitting buttons. Indeed, the calm, summarizing voice of reason was no more, giving way to a deeply disturbed one: "It's a bear.... it's going to eat us!"

"Last I checked," Disgust was glad to point out, "instead of bears, China had these black and white... pandas, was it?"

"Come on, it's a highrise apartment!" Joy stepped in. "When Riley and Mom got inside, did you see any pandas or whatever? No? Nothing among the Mental Notes? Then, we're good for the night, and for tomorrow, too!"

Yet, the most frightening demon of them all, instead of bears or pandas in the darkness, turned out to be Riley's own insecurity.

"If there's anything we're not good for, it's definitely tomorrow!" Fear said, continuing to operate the console. "We will have no way to introduce ourselves, and it's not like we can read off a script that has been automatically translated..."

"And we won't need to!" Joy spoke, trying to find the upside. "We already speak English — a language that basically everyone is learning, especially those wanting to trade with America..."