What the Barn Owls Saw

I’m Alva the Barn Owl that heard and saw everything. The sound of the motor, and the smell of exhaust, became an exhilarating, intoxicating coupling. I could taste the coming storm. I’ll try to remember the whole thing. The horses get the most credit from the little giant himself, Mr. Prince Rogers Nelson.

You may have heard the tune “Raspberry Beret.” Oh, you thought it was just a catchy piece of 80’s psychedelic pop? No, the whole thing actually happened! Let me relate the tale.

I prepared to go out to fly about when the clouds started to gather. So, I stayed on my perch on the beam in the interior of the barn. It began to rain. Then I heard this rumbling motorbike that mixed with the noise of the thunder.

I then heard the rider kill the engine. Flashes of lightning illuminated the place that looked like paparazzi camera lights going off.

I saw this tiny dude walk up to the front of the structure. He looked totally different from Mr. Samuel Johnson’s towering figure. But then a woman appeared wearing the famous red head covering. She was slim and had fair skin and long hair that tangled at the end like angel hair pasta.

The man who was about a few inches shorter than the woman pulled her by the hand past the horse stable. The rain pitter pattered like tiny drums beating against the roof. More lightning. A roll of thunder followed. This is where things got interesting.

The man and the woman did a funny, horizontal dance on the hay as tiny drops of rain fell through the crevices of the roof. It was quite peculiar. I knew that humans seemed to be somewhat strange, but this was a special dance I had never seen people do. They even were like me, not wearing any clothing.

The smell of the horses, and the clay-like scent of the rain, I paid no attention to any of it. I just looked down at this pair as they continued without an offer of food by the light-skinned man. That’s how we barn owls do what I think they were doing…no, what I know what they were doing.

I didn’t move. I was an icicle in below freezing temperatures. I tried to keep my composure and not ruffle my feathers. I didn’t give a hoot. I just stared down from my perch. My wife Linzella cozied up to me.

“What are you looking—oh my! Are they really…?” Linzella asked.

“Yes, yes. Keep it low, my love. They’re just doing what we have done. It’s not quite the same thing that we do but it’s similar. I can only wonder if Mr. Johnson and Mrs. Johnson engaged in the same activity. They’ve been married for six years and don’t have children. But that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Then again I don’t want to know about that.”

Linzella then said, “I know that’s right. She has a nice beret. When did it start raining? I was asleep.”

“Yes, it’s lovely. It’s been coming down for the past half hour or so, just before our two love-humans started their romantic relations in the hay below this beam,” I said.

“Well the male one looks like a beginner but the female seems like a pro. Where’d the beret go?” Linzella asked and chuckled lightly. I just laughed. I felt her move closer to me.

“I think it’s somewhere nestled between a knee and an elbow,” I pointed out to Linzella. She cooed. I noticed that the male had looked up and seen the both of us. The clouds had rolled away and the sun shone through the hole in the barn roof near the entrance. We fluttered away out of the barn into the sky.

“If that little fellow makes a song from what we just saw, he might have a hit,” Linzella observed floating over the landscape.

“Hopefully he’ll have a bigger audience for the music than some horses and barn owls!” I called.

“Raspberry Beret” by Prince

*****

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