In the middle of nowhere, a man wearing a uniform of dishonour screams into the wind, uncaring that the decibels would find a waiting ear.

He looks down at his greasy singlet, a murky brown starched with food crusts and piss, and his orange trouser a month away from degradation.

If only he could degrade with it and be carried like dust through the city where he would watch the people who were once a home to him, float through their laughter and banter without fear that they would recognise him.

You cannot lynch a ghost.

He slowly walks downhill, mumbling to himself with each step– a curious case to two butterflies who stop flapping happily at his approach. Sixteen years ago, he might have stopped to observe them.

The prison had caught fire and he escaped. Here in Nigeria, this is equal to liberty: there would be no policeman searching for him.

He'd been sentenced to forty years for the rape of a child, and has served sixteen. More than enough for the girl to have grown more devious. What is thirteen plus sixteen?

She had come under the guise of petting the butterflies in his butterfly house. She wanted to pet something else.

"I would never touch a child. Never!" He had sworn. Not even if he had a truckload of laudanum in his system.

He hadn't even a sip of alcohol that day. He had screamed at her to leave his house, and saw the devil wink back from her bright eyes as she shrieked for help.

In prison, he found that you could commit a range of sins, but a child was where the line was drawn.

The beatings did become few in between when more inmates admitted that Nigeria could happen to the best of us.

It wasn't Nigeria– it was all her.

On the off chance that he would find love, he would not make a child. He would probably help care for the aged– teaching children is a passion he would go to the ends of hell to suppress.

When he reaches the base of the hill, he suddenly stills. The houses are larger from this angle, with walls that would snuff out his life in a second. The people would see his scarred and crooked form and run away screaming. What year is this again?

His heart thuds against his ribcage as he reminds himself that retreat is not cowardice.

Up the hill, the rueful man sits on a patch of grass watching the haughty butterflies gossip about him. He chuckles into the air and immediately inhales the chuckle– laughter should not be wasted.

Clearing his throat, he acknowledges the applause of his phantom audience and with a flourish, begins.

"Butterflies, scientific name Rhopalocera, are my favourite insects. You know, they used to be called botterlicker: people actually believed they stole butter! Ha ha ha ha!"