As soon as he awoke he sensed the change that had overcome him and the garden.
The customary chill of the night was still present but the air seemed delicately poised in that calm not just between between night and day, but as if the season was a coiled spring.
He ached down one side as he stretched the deep sleep from his long muscular limbs.
"I must've slept awkwardly," he thought to himself, "I've decided that I need to make myself a new bed. Maybe a bigger bed."
It had never occurred to him until now that sleeping alone was somehow ... lonely. He had never felt lonely before, after all, this garden was a paradise.
"My den is a mess," he scolded himself, somehow he had let himself down, allowed standards to slip. "This place needs a good spring clean," he realised, seeing his solitary old quarters in a new light.
He remembered to dress in the single fig leaf that he had been instructed to wear, "to engender a sense of propriety", was the instruction handed to him by the grey-haired Old Man who first welcomed him on arrival, but had not been seen since. On warm sunny days, he had left the leaf off, but invariably had suffered a few painful little pricks from stray thorns. A valuable lesson that wasn't lost on his uncomplicated mind.
As he walked along the path that his steps had worn down to the waterhole, where he was accustomed to wash and refresh himself with a cool drink of spring water, he noticed everything looked greener somehow. The leaf buds which had seen to be swelled recently had suddenly burst forth in verdant green enthusiasm. The forest resounded in voluminous birdsong and the urgent rustle of other gentle creatures waking up to what all sensed was an exciting new dawn. The atmosphere was full promise, but he was at a loss to know what it all meant, other than today was different. His pace and spirits lifted in response to the crackling air of change.
He decided to sing a song he had made up, in his usual deep baritone. He kept his voice low, knowing that he could barely compete with the strident trill of birds or the humble hum of honey bees.
As he approached the pool, another song emerged from the joyful chatter of garden birds and the vibrating hum of hovering insects. A voice emerged from the background that was so melodious to his ears, that he felt his heart quicken, his blood heat rise. He found it hard to breathe enough air for his immediate needs, his knees losing their steadiness and his balance off his usual bounce.
Cautiously now, he crept forward, ears pricked, sniffing the air, trying to figure out what this new phenomenon was and concentrated on evolving new strategies to deal with it.
He stopped and parted some obscuring leaves, to reveal the totally unexpected.
There was another creature just like him, standing in his pool up to its waist, singing to itself as it carried out its joyous ablutions. Captivated, he observed it for a moment, or it could habeen hours, he was so entranced. The creature was very much like him and more so than any other creature he had met in the garden.
Moving closer served to increase his observations. He agreed with his initial assessment of similarity to himself but, on reflection, this new creature was subtly different to him. It was built far more delicately, with longer, lighter hair, which was wet and flattened to its back down almost to its narrow waist. Below that pinching waist there were defined dimples in the lower back, before its outline curving out at the hips, framing those glorious twin globes, perkily reminiscent of a giant peach as fully ripe as any peach could get.