At 52, Wilson, butterfly hunter, is feeling the weight of a past rich in errors and false starts. At the same time, he is obsessed with Gloria, a Chinese girl with a patch on one eye, he met in Hong Kong five years earlier. Gloria had led him into a "garden"if that's really happened. It's from this "garden" that Wilson feels he must now escape. He returns to Hong Kong in the summer of 2000, to collect butterflies and help fight a plan to turn Hong Kong's Centipede Island into a landfill. But Wilson can only think of Gloria. With the summer coming to an end, he knows he must confront his obsession and maybe save his own life.