Inside Out reImagined

A Bedtime Story

If Joy were pressed to comment on the day, she would say it was nothing short of exciting. Though she couldn't understand much, making keeping up with the other emotions much more difficult, and neither could she completely shake the messy-haired tall lady from her thoughts, she knew she always had Mommy to fall back on. She would tell Joy what to do when she was lost, she would hold her up when the buttons were too far to reach, and she would go through thick and thin to defend Joy in every possible way.

In the end, Joy liked it — and, more importantly, she liked Sadness. Of course, a child with rather limited perception would be prone to exaggeration, but Joy still fully felt it: no other emotion could be a mommy as good as her.

That being said, even though feeling what Riley felt was fun and games, eventually, the night came and Riley herself started getting sleepy, and so did Joy. Sitting around and listening to everyone talk for hours on end, as well as looking at the Consciousness Screen to really try and figure Riley out, took its toll, and she nearly fell off of her high chair. Nevertheless, Sadness was there to catch her in her fall and put her back on.

That, though, was when she, herself, realized that she might want to get down, and rather than wait around, she was going to solve the problem using her Imagination. She let herself Imagine that the high chair had a small spiral staircase of its own, and then, gracefully descended, a bit like a princess.

"Do you think you did a good job today? Are you ready to go to sleep?" Sadness asked, watching Joy yawn.

"Yeah... I think it's for the best." Joy brushed her hair, before laughing as she ran upstairs, with Sadness, once again, wanting to follow.

"Hey! Wait for me!" Sadness shouted from down below, trying her best to catch up with Joy.

Once Joy was up top, by the catwalk that overlooked the console and the Consciousness Screen, she suddenly felt so big. From up there, Disgust, Fear, and Anger looked so insignificant. She wondered: what were they talking about, now that she had left them alone? Was it more adult emotion stuff, talking about her while really meaning to talk about the messy-haired tall lady? Wouldn't it be better for everyone if they simply agreed to call the two by two different names?

"Hey, Joy? Your room is right there." Sadness pointed out, making Joy look back to the dorm doors — the same five, with her knowing which one hid the best things, and which ones were probably for the others, like Mommy. In the end, though, she wasted no time in trying to get in, only to realize that the door knob was way too high for her height. Sadness, though, was glad to help, and opened Joy's door for her.

Once she was inside her room, Joy was mesmerized. She loved absolutely everything about it, from the pictures to the wide open space, and there was only one slight problem: she couldn't find a bed anywhere. She could only really spot this bathtub.

As it would happen, though, this bathtub brought a thought to her, namely that she always slept in a bathtub, and she liked it, even though the other emotions found it weird and humans would have found it weird.

She proceeded to Imagine a little ladder, going from the floor to the faucet, with rungs so close that she could comfortably climb them. She then, seeing it was all empty — something about flopping around and wanting to feel dry in the morning? — turned the faucet on, letting it pour water.

Yet, for the childlike emotion, it was still painfully slow — and she checked that water was actually pouring in, as the faucet went as fast as it normally could, and nothing was immediately flowing out, as the drain was plugged.

Of course, it was nothing she couldn't solve using her Imagination, though, and soon enough, the water began pouring from the faucet faster and faster, giving the internal plumbing a bit of a shake, and at the bathtub itself, water began splashing all around, with droplets getting onto both Sadness and Joy.