Once Riley completed her homework; her mind would tell her to take at least a half an hour off for rest and relaxation, to restore her energy before the next hockey game. It had been close to a month now, since Riley moved to San Francisco; lucky for her, she was adjusting to the new pace and lifestyle of the west coast.
In her mind, the emotions stood crowding around the console, watching as Riley set herself down on her bed, and set her music list on play. Feeling that there was no need for action; the emotions began to settle down away from the console, while the lead emotion remained planted at the controls, placing daydreams in the slots to go along with Riley's favorite music. Joy nodded at the screen with approval, and turned to view the rest of the main control room.
Disgust was on one of the couches, inspecting her nails. Next to her was Anger, who had engrossed himself in the latest issue of 'The Mind Reader'. Aside from their primary occupation, the two were exchanging a few ideas in a minor conversation. On the other side of the room, Fear was reviewing his list on negative possibilities; mumbling and scratching off things that didn't happen to Riley at school, and looking over the next page which was about the upcoming game.
Joy looked around; only one particular emotion wasn't in sight.
"Sadness…?" she called out, her voice a little too high that it drew the others' attention.
The glowing emotion walked to the back of the control room. "Sadness?" she called again. After a few seconds of no response, Joy began to ascend the ramp that lead to the bed chambers. Half-way up, the missing emotion called to her.
"Yeah, Joy?"
Joy quickly whirled around to see the blue emotion seated near the shelves that held the mind manuals; in her hands was an open manual. The sight had surfaced a memory that made Joy feel guilty. To quickly rid herself of it, Joy planted her hands at her hips and gave Sadness a knowing smirk.
"Sadness, what are you doing over there?" Joy added a slight tone of humor to the question, as if it was silly to find anyone back there. She descended back down the ramp and made her way over, as Sadness slowly looked back down at the open manual.
"I'm just reading the manuals." Sadness answered in an obvious tone.
"I can see that." Joy said as she stood before her, and raised a brow. It had only been a few seconds before the guilty feeling came back, which caused Joy's bright smile to slowly melt down to one that was much smaller and more depressed-looking than happy.
"You know…" Joy started. "You don't have to read these boring manuals anymore… Come on; let's go do something together!" her voice became chipper once again at the last part of her sentence, and she felt her usual energy and enthusiasm flowing through her being again.
Sadness looked back up at Joy. "But I like reading the manuals…" she answered honestly. Joy was taken aback by that answer; even from someone like Sadness.
The blue emotion watched as her companion cocked her head in an uncertain manner. Sadness figured this may be a good time to practice a little trick she thought of.
"There is so much information about the mind to be found in the manuals." She started. "I feel it's a big responsibility to hold all this information and provide it in efficient time when needed most."
Joy thought of this, and slowly nodded.
"Since I've started reading them, I figured not so many are up to the hard and overlooked task of taking all this information in, and keeping hold of it. Lucky for us, I have what it takes to read every part of the manuals, and keep the information in mind." Sadness concluded.
Joy slowly processed all of this; and then something snapped her mind to a realization.
"Wait, wait…" Joy asked. "Are you saying that I don't have what it takes to read these and know absolutely everything there is about the mind?" she gestured to the other manuals on the shelf.
Being the leader of the emotions, and a very important piece of Riley herself, Joy found this a little unnerving. Sure, she knew all about Riley; from the things she liked and disliked, to the things that helped build her personality. The bigger truth was however, that there was more to the mind than just that; there was overlooked mechanics on some things, and of course the overall mapping of the mind. Joy did not reflect fondly on having to go through the endless maze that was Riley's long term memory.
"Not necessarily…" Sadness sighed.
Joy glanced back at the rest of the control room; the other emotions were minding their own business, and Riley was still occupied with her daydreams. With a look of determination, she walked up to Sadness and swiped the manual out of her hands. The blue emotion was startled a bit by the sudden motion, and looked up at Joy.
"Which one is this?" Joy asked.
"Memory Conducts and Day Dream Combining volume 25," Sadness replied.
Joy looked at the cover of the manual; yes, that really was the title. She raised her brow at how long the title by itself was. The glowing emotion let out a short "Huh," and then resided to looking at the page Sadness was reading out of it. Surely after finding a way back to headquarters through the different mind locations, the manuals wouldn't be too much to figure out… right…?
"What does this mean?" Joy stopped and asked, placing the book closer to Sadness, so she could see it. Sadness explained it to her, as best as she could without getting too technical.
"There is a better explanation about them in Memory Conducts volume 14." The blue emotion concluded.
Joy did her best to take all of this in; but it wasn't very long before another thing she hadn't heard about had stopped her, and egged her to get another explanation from Sadness.
"That is also found in volume 12" Sadness concluded patiently. She simply sat there, with her hands clasped together in front.
Looking at the advanced instructions, Joy began to realize that this wouldn't be as easy as thought, and her pent up energy was nagging her to find something better to do.
"It must all be very confusing to you." Sadness said.
"Well…" Joy looked left, then right, and then back at Sadness. "Sort of…" she admitted. "Did I really make you read all this stuff for the past 11 years?"
"It's not as bad as you think, Joy." Sadness replied, and then gestured to the other stacks of manuals that were on the floor nearby. "Maybe if you started from the beginning, it would all make sense."
Joy turned her head to look at the stacks, while still holding the one manual open in her hands. At this point now, the glowing emotion let out a small groan. Sadness looked at Joy, and Joy slowly looked back at her with an uncertain expression. It was now the blue emotion's turn to feel guilty; thinking that she tricked her best friend into doing something out of character.
"I'm sorry." Sadness mumbled.
"Huh?" Joy raised a brow at her.
"You don't really have to read them, if you don't want to. I was only teasing you about how important it was to read them." Sadness looked at the floor.
"Hey, you know what?" Joy spoke up, a smile growing on her face. Sadness looked back up at her. "You're probably right about these manuals, and what you said. It shouldn't be taken for granted. Aside from Bing Bong, if it weren't for you, I would probably still be wandering aimlessly around Long Term Memory."
Sadness put on a little smile at that.
Joy looked down at the manual, and then looked at the perspective screen. "I'm not so sure if I could really meet the standards that you talked about, when it comes to reading all of the mind manuals," Joy looked back at Sadness. "But I'll tell you what; I'll give it a shot! Before Riley goes to the next game, I'll look into the beginning ones."
The glowing emotion returned the book to her blue friend; and then walked over to the other stacks. She plucked one from the top of a stack, and looked at the front.
"Introduction to the Mind; volume one," she said out loud, before walking over and seating herself next to Sadness. She opened to page one, and began to read out loud.
"The mind is a vast landscape of the brain; enabling the host to feel, think, and be aware. Mhmm…" Joy nodded. "The center of the mind is Head Quarters, where the five emotions reside, and contribute to the host's senses. Ugh…" Joy groaned, slightly irritated. "As if I didn't know that already…"
Despite her primary feelings, Sadness couldn't help it; she let out a snicker. Joy stopped reading at once, and developed a look of shock from what she heard. She turned to look at Sadness, as one corner of her lips slowly started to pull back to make a half-smile.
Sadness didn't do it again, but she still kept a little smile on her face. Maybe because it was definitely better to have someone reading next to you, especially if that particular someone's antics were rather humorous. Joy's half-smile turned into a full one. She hummed thoughtfully as she turned to look back into the introduction manual, keeping in mind to listen for when Mom called Riley to go to the game.