The peacock had always believed the garden belonged to him 🦚. That's a pretty confident peacock! However at dawn, when the mist still clung to the hibiscus edges and the world felt unfinished, he would climb onto the old stone wall and wait for the sun. His name, at least the name he had given himself, was Rājā 🦚.
Raja's feathers were not simply blue, they were oceans folded into silk. When the light touched him his neck shimmered like a secret. He knew this. He had watched the gardeners pause mid-step, had seen children tug at their mothers' sleeves, whispering and pointing. Beauty, he understood, was a kind of power.
He would turn slowly, deliberately, and then - like a magician revealing his final trick - he would lift his train. The feathers unfurled in a trembling arc, each eye gleaming gold and emerald. The garden seemed to inhale. Even the breeze softened, careful not to disturb the masterpiece.
But one morning, the sky stayed gray.
No sunlight slipped through the clouds. No children came. The gardeners hurried past with their collars turned up, muttering about rain. Raja waited on the wall, his feathers heavy with damp air.
He lifted his train anyway.
Without sunlight, the colours dulled. The emerald faded to moss. The gold to dust. The eyes that once dazzled now seemed ordinary - like painted stones.
For the first time Raja felt small.
A sparrow landed beside him, plain and brown and entirely unremarkable. She shook rain from her wings and chirped, "You'll catch a chill, standing like that."
Raja lowered his feathers slowly. "No one is watching." he said.
"I am," the sparrow replied.
He glanced at her, confused. She wasn't starting in awe. She wasn't whispering. She was simply there.
"I sing every day," she continued. "Whether the sun shines or not. Sometimes no one hears me. But I still sing."
Raja listened. He had never really listened before. The sparrow's song was not grand. It did not shimmer. But it filled the gray morning with something warm and steady.
That evening, when the rain finally broke and a thin blade of sunlight cut through the clouds, Raja did not rush to the wall.
Instead, he walked through the dripping garden, noticing the tiny beads of water clinging to leaves, the scent of wet earth, the quiet rhythm of life continuing without applause.
When he finally lifted his train again, it was not for the gardeners or the children or even the sun.
It was simply because he could.
And in the soft after-rain glow, with the sparrow singing nearby, Raja discovered something more dazzling than feathers --
He discovered that beauty is brightest when it no longer needs to be seen.