I long to kiss her. I've been chasing her for years, and she has always joyfully escaped me, a whiff of her perfume, a whirl of her dress away. Don't get us wrong. I'm no hunter and she's no game. It's just a silly play written by an intoxicated playwright. Last time, I was almost there. Hypnotised by the so delicate up-tilted corners of her smile, I kept going on, closer and closer, until she said, Stop, or I will turn into wild butterflies. How could I stop ? She was all I wrote, she still is. She made the gesture of holding me, kissing me, and at the last possible fraction of time before I could actually touch her I beheld tiny fluttering sparks in her eyes, on her lips, on her hair, and suddenly she was all around me, her thousands of silken wings brushing me as softly as if I was made of china, leaving on my skin a bright and colourful butterfly dust (that made me sneeze afterwards, but that is another story). She danced for a while, blissfully aware of her weightlessness. Then a light breeze came, and dispersed her. And she was gone.

She would compose herself later, regaining her lovely and inalterable shape, and she would start looking for me, for another round of our