The tent door flapped in the breeze like the flippers of a sea lion anticipating something special coming its way. It was edifying for Swampy to watch the early morning birds rise into the sky and swoop down through the openings in the canvass when it was caught by the wind. The lightning flashed behind the clouds across the lake and the muffled sound of thunder followed sluggishly behind.

He leaned back over his shoulder and watched the girl slumbering. Her sleeping bag had slipped down in the night and he was able to observe the way her body rose and fell to the beat of a different drum to the waking one which he found himself listening to. He was able to see the fine downy hairs on her upper lip when the daylight poked its head in. After he'd had his fill of studying her sleeping form he reached for a piece of grass. With it he touched ever so gently the end of her nose. She twitched but didn't rouse herself from her flowing repose.

Thus he left her and went off to look for the morning.

When he returned she was gone. The tent was still there, but the only remaining thing, apart from his memories of her, was the imprint of her body in the ground where she'd been sleeping. Having only been gone five minutes he was fairly sure that she'd return. He waited for a few days.

When she still hadn't returned he came to the conclusion that there had been no foul play and that she must have simply decided that she'd had enough and left for the big world out there where he had no hope of finding her.

Once he'd got this clear in his head he decided against any futile searches for her. Why waste his time - if she wanted to find him she would. This refreshed him and lead him to embark upon a plan to immortalize her memory. After all she'd never really done him any wrong, so he felt obliged to log her memory and to attach it to the only thing that he knew anything about - butterflies.

He'd been labouring in fields and searching for the perfect butterfly ever since he could remember. He felt sure that he remembered chasing around on hands and knees as a baby having seen some extremely rare species, but then he'd never seen it again after that. Maybe it was one of those early childhood memories that falsely promises you the earth and gives you nothing - or maybe it wasn't.

With this thought, as ever, at the back of his mind he set out on his quest - he would find that butterfly and capture it so that he could name it after the girl who he had left sleeping.

He lay down to sleep on his plan. Through the night he fell and, without a thought in his head, drifted until morning. At some unearthly hour a dream scattered the night birds. His first recollection was of a small sound way off in the distance, rhythmic and low. It grew louder and louder and still he could see nothing. The rhythm slowed and rippled and when he opened his eyes he saw overhead the most amazing butterfly. It was hovering and its wings were the things that he had heard swell and swoop the distance across the night. The butterfly was the one from his childhood. After it had paraded for him it started its return journey into the sunlight. He closed his eyes. When he awoke his heart felt lighter and he knew what he must do. He packed his things and headed east to where he felt sure he must find what he was looking for.

Five years it took him before he chanced upon the flaming winged butterfly. Five years in which he had grown lean. Five years when he thought the madness of his pursuit might leave him naked and hysterical staring into the mirror of his memory.

It came upon him all of a sudden as he was taking a rest in a clearing in some woods where he'd been treading round and round in ever more random tracks, trying to simulate the desultory flight of a butterfly in the vain hope that he'd be able to tune into its wavelength and either tempt it down from Heaven or up from Hell.

Extremely tired he'd closed his eyes and pulled up his shirt a little way so that he could feel the heat of the sun on his naked belly. In this state his mind had freed itself awhile. He opened his eyes to see the bright sun beaming down at him and the butterfly he might be seeking skating across his path. He was unsure it was the one until he heard the faint sound of its wings.

He leapt up immediately and tracked it off into the forest, where it proceeded to remain tantalizingly far away. Then, all of a sudden, he knew not how, it was in his hands. In his haste he'd left the sure-fire butterfly net in the clearing where he'd been sprawled out in the sun. Not to worry though. He could feel the tiny heartbeat flutter of the wings inside his cupped hands. It re-assured him no end and he began to have thoughts about the future.

He'd build the monument he wanted to the girl he'd left sleeping. He'd get it mounted - although it was a shame to take life away from it, the situation called upon him to mount it - and then he'd get the name registered as the canonized version of his loved one's name. Then maybe she'd come back to him and the butterfly would become the catalyst that sparked off the heat of their true love, which surely still lay out there somewhere in the deep of the night and the therapeutic light of the day. They'd spend their remaining years in a cottage in a forest with their mounted butterfly.

These thoughts made him extremely happy, to such an extent that he started to relax, in the subconscious belief that the job was already done. His pace slowed slightly, his walk became more rambling, more side-to-side and he even attempted to whistle a happy tune. It was in this spirit of calm that the butterfly took advantage of him and slipped out of a small gap that it had watched develop between the fingers of his left hand.

Swampy felt the harmonious way in which the butterfly wriggled to freedom. He could not believe what was happening and watched with utter despair the way it opened its wings, flew directly into the sun and emerged from the big yellow ball in some other direction that was lost to him.

Once again he'd let a false sense of what he had defeat him. He knelt down in the dirt and scribed the message 'there's no such thing as victory'. It was his intention that people should take this as a warning and act upon it.

The departure took him longer to get over this time. When he thought about it later he wondered why the loss of the girl should hurt him less than that of the butterfly. There was no answer that he could think of other than that the butterfly had been carrying that precious thing called hope.

He reeled around the forest for several weeks. The only people who came across him took him for a walker, although they were puzzled at his beard all ragged and unkempt and the startled look in his eyes.

Once he'd finally recovered, got himself together and ordered the sad thoughts in his mind he decided to get out there again and search for that butterfly. His plan was altered slightly - more idealistic than ever, having by now given up hope of the girl coming back he just wanted to force her name to endure.

Some three years later, still full of the purpose that he'd watched grow those first lonely months after the second body blow, he chanced upon the butterfly again. This time he'd been lead a merry dance far and wide until, one day in some garden in a city, he'd seen what could be the one he was looking for. After several false alarms he was loathe to give in to the promise of another false dawn. Again it was the sound of the wings that he recognized.

With his equipment all battered and made useless by this time, he was once again forced to capture the butterfly by hand. This time he was sure that he'd be able to snare it and keep it in his hands - no matter how far he had to walk with the butterfly - until he got it to the large glass aquarium he was planning to keep it in.

His hands closed around the butterfly and he felt its rapturous little wings beating like the heart of his loved one that morning she'd disappeared. He recognized the motion that he'd been carrying in his dreams during the intervening years. He was steady on his feet and totally one with the butterfly, making sure that it didn't escape. When he got back to the house that he'd taken up in another town he looked longingly at the glass case and felt as if his mission was finally nearing completion. From that day forth he'd be able to watch the butterfly flying around and around in the aquarium and see out a few of his days comfortably.

When he opened his hands to put the butterfly into its glass prison it didn't move. Maybe it was sleeping. He put it in the glass cube and placed the cover gingerly on.

For three days and three nights he sat up watching for signs of life. Every time he thought he sensed movement he'd go over, only to find that he'd been imagining it. During that time he'd always be surprised at how day had turned to night and then back to day without him realizing it. The fourth time this happened the change brought a gradually increasing sense of doom to him and he realized that the game was up.

Taking the butterfly out of the aquarium he went out of the house to the river across the street. He sat down on the bank wondering what to do. The tears welled in his eyes and he held them back. When he could do this no more, he wept silent floods of tears for the death of his last hope.

A wind rose at the top of the mountain and rolled down towards where he sat. Through his rain filled eyes he didn't see the way it barreled down the mountainside whipping up bigger and bigger ripples amongst the trees.

He could see no further than the corpse of the butterfly. He watched its stone dead form and prayed for one last chance. It never came. The wind did though, taking a firm hold of the dead butterfly and carrying it off. He felt it lift and watched the lifeless form being tossed around above the river, before it fell in. There the wind could touch it no longer and it sailed away before disappearing under the bridge.

Swampy slumped backwards and, after looking up to Heaven for a sign and receiving none, closed his eyes. It felt great to be alone.

Kevin Hadley, is, at the moment, living on the island of Cyprus, where he’s spending his time working on his second novel - and attempting to find a publisher for his first. When not engaged in these activities, he’s to be found coming to terms with the pleasures that Cypriot life offers, after four bone-chilling winters in Warsaw.