Lepidopterology is the study of butterflies and moths to the exclusion of all other insects. A strange lepidopterist lives in a termite-infested house on the edge of town, neighbor to nothing and no-one. If he had room in his heart for beetles and spiders and other forms of creeping, crawling life, he would be an entomologist and not half as strange, but his consuming obsession does not extend to anything else.

Only butterflies and moths.

Coyotes used to prowl through the tall yellow grass behind the house, but the lepidopterist is long in the tooth and knew just how to scare them away so that they wouldn’t come back. The ravens and the crows were next, then the speckled eggs in the cradle of the nest: all still and flightless when his work was done. He is no ornithologist, either. Removing them made room for his favourite things to breathe and fly free, and by the might of the same blunt tools, a butterfly garden was soon erected in the backyard.

Inside the house, there are dozens of wooden cases with glass fronts, designed for displaying preserved butterflies and moths. Most lie as bare as his kitchen cabinets, which makes him a strange lepidopterist: he hasn’t the stomach to keep any. Those that remain are ragged monarchs chewed up and spat out by whatever creature tasted their bright, bitter wings and thought the better of it.

He stores his blunt tools next to a bell jar on his workbench. The glass contains decomposing leaf litter and wilting flowers, and has imprisoned within it a single specimen of the genus Dryas. This one he has nicknamed Julia, because her species is the D. iulia; a bad joke inherited from the entomologist who lived in the house before him. Difficult to swallow without smiling.

Now, the lepidopterist lifts the bell jar like the lid of a serving dish and extracts her with feather-light expertise. Several of her brothers and sisters have made their home beneath the poplars in the butterfly garden, as common as mud. He often watches them from the kitchen window whenever the southern sun grows hot enough to dry him out, but one day Julia came in to keep him company, clinging to his green-checkered shirt rather than the greenery outside. A kindred spirit, she too chose the safety and security of a short life indoors over the nasty, brutish freedom God intended.

Julia trusts his gnarled finger is a twig to rest on, sprinkling the ridges and wrinkles with her sweet pixie dust. Her passionfruit wings are long and tucked in protectively against her abdomen. Some would describe them as gossamer, but they are far more delicate than that. Like rice paper. He has heard that edible confetti is made out of it these days so that when it’s thrown at weddings it doesn’t harm the local wildlife. It just dissolves away to nothing in the rain.

Melts in the mouth.

He swallows the butterfly whole and fluttering.

Black, like his pupils. They were dark and pierced through me. It didn’t matter what color his eyes were. It was the undiscovered universe behind them. It was the mysterious darkness that looked at me. It was like the color of this room. Completely and utterly pitch black.

I opened my eyes and studied the shadows of the silence. All I saw was black, like a void, trying to swallow me. My sheets were reassurance that I was still alive, still breathing, still lying in the stiff, sanitized bed in a hospital room.

Father Sergius is scheduled to visit me today. He will arrive with his black cassock and black briefcase and his black shoes. He will open his briefcase and pull out his cross and a few other holy things. He will caress his black prayer rope with his fingers. He will ask what is on my mind, what is ailing me.

What will I say? It’s all around me. It caresses my skin, yet I cannot feel it. It holds me tight but never touches me. It folds me into the very heart of my sin. It leaves me empty and cold. Yet, no matter how close I am to the darkness, it never leads me to him.

All I have are memories of him. I can watch them. I can hear them. I can replay them over and over. They are a part of me, and yet I am not a part of them.

How can I keep searching in the darkness for his mysterious universe? No matter how close I get to the darkness, it will never be close enough to see him again. However, I must not lose hope, Father Sergius, even if it kills me.