Mid-Week Flash Challenge - Week 85

This week's prompt is a piece of Digital Art from a French artist, Cyril Rolando, or AquaSixio over on Deviant Art. He calls this Piano Lesson.

A last minute tale popped into my head for this one, after forgetting it was Wednesday and I hadn't written anything! 

The General Guidelines can be found here.

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Capturing Magic

Chris positioned the video camera then he positioned the bird. The owl clung to the edge of the piano, unsure what it was meant to do, looking at the keys. Then it reached out a claw and depressed one. The piano gave off a short low base sound. Chris thought it might startle, but instead it froze, looking more closely at the key it had pressed. Then it did it again.

Chris felt prickles of goosebumps run up his arms as he tapped the record button and looked through the lens, zooming in on the owl’s talons as it laid them on one key after another. But he found himself pulling away again to watch with the naked eye as a melody became apparent. 

Even though he was seeing and hearing it, he couldn’t quite believe it, and nor would anyone else. He knew the video would be considered a hoax of some sort, edited or dubbed over with the music, but he left it running anyway, transfixed by the owl as it played tunes he swayed to, watching it dance up and down the piano keys in an almost comical way, yet like a master composer and concert pianist.

Chris dug finger nails into his crossed arms to convince himself he was awake and this was real. The pain was significant; it had to be.

It went on for more than half an hour until finally the piece of music reached its crescendo. Chris applauded wildly, so enraptured by the performance, and the owl turned to him, cocking its head as though acknowledging the appreciation.

Then it cocked its head in the other direction, towards the conservatory where its cage was kept and leapt off the piano towards it. Chris was so mesmerised by the playing he assumed the bird was tired and returning to its perch to rest, forgetting that it had just displayed high intelligence and wasn’t captive bred.

The top two windows of the conservatory were open to let the room breathe and out the bird flew, gone, along with Chris’s dreams of a repeat performance.