Milton Pitt leads an uneventful life in the city of Oxford, with a dull job and a secret longing for adventure. One morning, on his way to work, he is hit by a speeding car. For a moment he hovers above his body in the shape of a butterfly, until he re-awakens in his bedroom, as if the morning so far never happened. Is he dead? Was it just a dream? Everything in his room looks exactly the same as when he first woke up. Everything, that is, except for the bloody footprints leading to the fireplace...