Collin's Singular Day

 For the weekly Flash Fiction for the Purposeful Practitioner, inspired by the picture here. 

Collin was not his name, but its rough equivalent, which was "young one." One day he came upon something he had never seen before. He kept his facial expression neutral as he regarded the sphere that hovered in front of him. In his mind, Collin thought of the sphere using a short string of symbols which would roughly translate into English as "fruit without a tree." It really was puzzling. It was the wrong color for him to even think about eating it, but it was puzzling and Collin liked puzzles. 

Collin heard clicking noises that seemed to come from inside his head. He thought of them as "beetles inside Collin." He found the noises unpleasant but he moved closer to the sphere anyway, and the noises became louder. 

The puzzle of the fruit without a tree gnawed at Collin. He held out his hand and was able to grab it. When he did so, he felt pain in his hand that made him fall back onto the ground.  He did not have a symbol for that. It was a totally new thing and therefore would be its own symbol. When Collin looked up from his supine position, the fruit without a tree rose up into the sky and in a moment or two, ceased to exist. 

Collin rose and returned to the band. He found some fruit in the tree, where it properly belonged, and ate it. That night he dreamt about the fruit without a tree.