Spring Garden

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.

The creature was delighting in lifting double handfuls of water and spilling them onto its head, the water streaming down its body. Droplets clung here and there as they will, or were swept away as tiny rivulets ran down to drip off the creature's pointed elbows. He could only see the creature from a rear aspect and he desired with all his captivated heart to see it fully in the round.

Deftly, he moved around edge of the rippling pool, intending to observe the front view of this lissome creature, still singing away as if it hadn't a care in the world, like all the creatures in this glorious garden. Obscured by a thicket, his olfactory sense distracted him momentarily from his present task. A gnarled old tree that he had ignored all his life, suddenly attracted him, both by its pungent yet pleasant smell and a sight of outstanding colours to behold in its unique glory.

Overnight, the previously anonymous stump had burst forth into exquisite blossom, the like of which surpassed all the flowers that bloom.

He plucked a twig and held its heavy blooms to his nose, controlling his breath to a gentle inhalation of its scent, instinctively realising its heady perfume could overwhelm him if he was incautious with his olfactory senses. Somehow, knowledge flowed from this plucked bough into his furrowed brow, and thence seeped into his simple untapped mind. Now he knew that the new creature was in fact a female of his own species, and further knew that she would love this simple, beautiful offering of beautiful blossoms, allowing him to strike up a desired acquaintance, which may lead on to ... dare he think it ... mating.

Clutching his sprig as if his very life and future happiness depended on it, he rounded the obscuring shrubbery to emerge on the sandy shore of the tiny pool, where he could regard this woman in all her glory.

She was still singing, her attention absorbed in hanging a pair of leaves, cunningly combined into a singular garment by the ingenuous interweaving of vines, onto an overhanging branch to drip dry. As she dropped her arms to her sides, his attention was absorbed by the simple loveliness of her chest, which made his manly chest seem a featureless tundra in comparison. The droplets of water from her bathing was still clinging to her delicate frame, her movements breaking the surface tension to bursting point and the liquid ran down her pendulous, jiggling chest appendages ... he sniffed the blossom ... breasts, dripping off the puckered nibbles. He sighed, she was unlike anything he had ever seen, and realised that his own single vine leaf was no longer adequate for his modesty.

Tentatively, he stepped into the pool, partly hoping that the cold water would reduce the inexplicable and embarrassing swelling of that previously superfluous appendage that he was experiencing for the first time, and secondly hoping not to frighten her, holding out the sweet shoot he had plundered from the bush in utter oblation of this apparent goddess.

Startled by his sudden appearance, she screamed, "argghhh!" at the top of her voice, piercing the quiet peacefulness of the spring garden.

With one delicate hand she swept away the flowery offering in a flurry of petals and slapped him hard against his cheek with the other. Then she clamped both inadequate hands to her ample chest, spitting with venom, "You dirty pervert, sneaking around here with your eyeballs on stalks and flashing your 'bits' like I should be impressed. Hell will have to freeze over before you get your hands on these apples!"

She turned and stomped off away from him, his eyes too full of tears to appreciate the delectable view of her heart-shaped ass disappearing into the forest, never to be seen by him again.

A serpent, observing the scene played out before him from an accommodating branch, sensed a Presence next to him. He turned to see the Old Man, shaking His head sadly at the scene.

"Well," the serpent said, "I never saw that coming, did you?"

"No," He admitted, "I guess it's back to the drawing board."

The end, or is that a new beginning?