Inside Out reImagined

Joy's Absolutely Crazy Retrieval

Riley couldn't focus on studying. She just couldn't.

It was by no means the emotions' fault; all of them — even defiant elements like Anger and, as of lately, Joy — knew better than to try and defy Riley's father, or insist that Riley didn't need Chinese knowledge in China. However, what they saw and heard through the Consciousness Screen painted a completely different picture, with Chinese characters becoming such a mess that couldn't even be properly copied to the notebook, with English words seeming like they were the next to follow.

Groaning and sighing, coming from Riley, had already become a regular occurrence throughout this forced study session. Finally, she had developed another irritating habit: closing the beginner's textbook, only to open it moments later.

If Riley's father could see her mind, he would almost definitely change his — or would he? To the emotions, he was already known for standing by whatever he declared in his own anger outbursts, almost as if he wanted to prove that these anger outbursts didn't matter and that he always knew what was best for Riley. And so far, the emotions had no reason to doubt him.

However, one incident finally made them reconsider.

Likely due to the trouble Riley had focusing, she had briefly lost the sense of orientation. As a result, the entirety of Headquarters swerved, making the emotions grab onto the nearest stable object; that, of course, was the console, which everyone — even Joy, who couldn't exactly provide emotional input, but who could still provide other kinds of input — was sitting by. Therefore, Riley, being overwhelmed with everything she could feel at once, let out a louder groan than usual — or rather, a cross between a groan and a scream.

This sound definitely gave the emotions a big scare, and Fear even screamed out in return. Immediately, they stopped what they were doing, and Anger, the first emotion to regain his senses, made Riley close the book and put it aside. He just knew that there was to be no more studying today, and anyone telling Riley otherwise could get a piece of him right away.

"Well!" Joy declared, being the second to regain her senses. "This is as good a time as any for one of our regular resumés!"

"More like ad-hoc resumés." Anger noted, before making quite the bold claim: "We can't do anything anymore. I'm afraid we're losing Riley."

Almost like clockwork, Fear shot up. "We're losing Riley? Whatever are we even going to do?"

"If it truly ever comes to a point when Riley just plain refuses to take any of our input," Disgust said, speaking with a relief never seen before, "I'm fleeing Headquarters and getting a villa somewhere near one of the Islands. I haven't decided which one yet. Maybe I'll even declare a cluster of Formatives on the Grid a new Island, for that purpose! What do you think of Disgust Island being the hot new tourist destination for the mind?"

"Good idea." Anger agreed. "I'd even say I fancy living near you. We could be a quirky couple that just hates the world!"

On any other day, Disgust would have loudly cringed at the idea of ever being in a couple. Yet, today, they couldn't help but play along: "Yeah! I can already picture it: the villa is guarded with fashionable yet deadly fences that vaporize a Mind Worker if they so much as look at it!"

"We're really birds of a feather, aren't we?" Anger noted, nodding. "Anyone coming along with us?"

It was the most uncharacteristic of thoughts ever to be voiced at Headquarters. The express purpose of emotions in Riley's mind was to serve her, and yet, here two of them were, actively discussing ditching her. Whoever still had some sense left in them would simply need to disagree.