The 99 Sorrows

 No-one saw it start. It was just there, hanging above the edge of the cliff in Folkestone. Because it was Folkestone, people initially thought it was an installation for the local Triennial art exhibition, one of those anonymous expressions of virtuosity like the spray-painted stencils often seen in the town.

“But it’s alive,” the Triennial director said. “How could anyone put it there?”

This was certainly true. It was a huge teardrop-shaped cloud of butterflies, deep, bruised purple and black in colour, fluttering but remaining as a cohesive whole. She reached out, but the cloud stayed out of range. The feeling around it was of incredible sadness. She moved away. The ache was just too terrible to be borne.

The local TV news channel sent a crew, with Jayne, on her first assignment as a trainee reporter. She interviewed a wildlife expert.

“Could you tell us about this species, Dr Ellerby? Is it normal for them to mass in this way?” she asked.

“I’ve not seen this species of butterfly before. Perhaps it’s been blown across from Africa, like those winds from the Sahara. Purple emperors and purple hairstreak butterflies are found in the UK, but nothing of this majesty.”

Dr Ellerby paused, evidently overcome by the sight. Jayne resisted the temptation to interrupt. The expert’s awe was evident.

“No, no, it’s not unusual for butterflies to congregate like this. They mate and die off very quickly.”

The butterflies stayed, though, and the emotion they generated could not be explained. The closer you approached the cloud, the more piercing the sadness you felt. Of course, people started to mythologise the phenomenon. It was a signal of climate extinction, the Second Coming, a cry from Gaia on the plight of the earth.

Jayne ran a series of “Butterfly theory” pieces. At the TV station, she was now known as “the Butterfly Correspondent.” She knew there was an element of ribbing, but her colleagues seemed proud of her as well.

The council had to put in barriers, as the traffic along the Leas Cliff had become impossible. Park and Ride buses from the motorway were rammed.

Boys threw stones at the cloud of butterflies, but they seemed to bounce off a force field just short, as did any probe or net. The curtain of them seemed to absorb all light at the centre, so that your eyes still felt full of that impossible purple when you looked away.

A local writer called the butterflies “The 99 Sorrows.” The name stuck. Folkestone council were ambivalent about being known as the “Town of the 99 Sorrows,” but couldn’t deny that it brought in the visitors.

Butterfly souvenirs and T-shirts were all the rage, and Jayne interviewed artists in Folkestone’s Creative Quarter about the influence of the cloud on their art and businesses.

Scientists were at first fascinated, but then felt affronted that the butterflies and their effect defied their attempts to categorise. Religious groups claimed the marvel for themselves. The mystery was so ineffable, it seemed made for spiritual interpretation.

 Somehow, the mist of sadness healed people. Families of Covid victims came; they cried as they stood next to the cloud and came away weeping but cleansed, their sorrow now feeling part of a whole, and somehow more memorable. One of Jayne’s best pieces was about the effect of the 99 Sorrows on families touched by Covid. The piece made the national news and there was talk of nomination for an award.

At 08:18 on 12 September, Folkestone was rocked by Kent’s worst recorded earthquake. The epicentre was just offshore and measured 4.6 on the Richter scale. Houses shook, chimney pots fell, and a dog walker was rushed to hospital when she was hit by flying debris. People stood in the street in pyjamas and dressing gowns, dazed and frightened. It wasn’t the first earthquake Folkestone had ever experienced, but the violence of the tremors made people unsure if they were safe to go home. The Fire Brigade were at full stretch; the Dover Sikh community set up street stalls with astonishing speed to deliver cups of tea and hot meals to residents evacuated to the church hall. Jayne didn’t stop; she was out with a camera crew all day, feeding back pieces to camera and interviews as she went. She made a feature about the Sikh group who were doing such good work in helping people, which had the leaders of the Dover Sikhs pulling their beards in embarrassed modesty.

A week later, worse headlines were to appear. Storm ‘Samuel’ was piling clouds across the Channel. High winds were due to coincide with an equinoctial high tide. People were warned to secure any loose debris from the earthquake. Sandbags were distributed to low lying areas of Folkestone.

 “Are the 99 Sorrows bringing us bad luck?” became a common conversation. Attempts to throw something at the butterflies increased, but with as little effect as before. Someone even brought a vacuum cleaner and attempted to suck the butterflies out of the sky. The cloud was untouched.

The storm struck with Force 10 winds. It was impossible to walk along the clifftop. Jayne was worried about the butterflies, and tried to approach them, but she got no closer than the first lamp post at the end of the Leas Cliff Hall. She had to hang on to the lamp post desperately, bits of debris flying past her, till a police car rescued her and took her home.

“Were they there?” asked the policewoman.

“I couldn’t see them,” said Jayne, grimly. “Maybe they’re gone. How could they survive these winds, anyway?”

The next day, Jayne and the TV cameras were back; The cloud of butterflies seemed to have reformed without injury.

The depth of sadness could not be filmed directly, but people with tears streaming down their faces showed how the curtain of sorrow had intensified.

Feeling was now turning against the 99 Sorrows in some quarters. People muttered of the curse of Folkestone. No one had any idea how to get rid of the butterflies. An official from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food was sent for.

“Look here,” said the local council leader, Ted Abbott. “We really can’t have this ‘Curse of Folkestone’ business carrying on, now.” He stuck out his considerable stomach as if defending himself from the butterflies.  “Can’t you just spray them or something?”

There was a gasp from the crowd. It had been a mistake to voice his ideas in public. Jayne re-wrote her piece for the evening news in five minutes flat.

“Council leader orders extermination of the Folkestone butterflies!” the headlines screamed.

An hour later, you could barely see the butterflies for the placards. “Save the 99 Sorrows!” “No butterfly butchery!” “No to butterfly massacre!”

The MinAgFish man had been reading about the resilience of the butterfly cloud. He’d seen footage of people failing to hit the butterflies with any missiles. He thought it unlikely the insects would survive the autumn weather anyway. Above all, he didn’t want to get lynched; he wanted to survive another day, to go home to his cat in Sutton and watch the cricket. He very ostentatiously drank from a bottle of water, then fitted a spray nozzle over the end of it. He explained to Jayne, on camera:

“I am just testing with plain water. Given that nothing else has reached them, I would be very surprised if this does. Even if it touches them, it will do no harm.”

He pointed the nozzle at the butterflies. It was evident that the water droplets didn’t get through whatever force field protected the cloud.

“Spraying wouldn’t work, look!” he said, shaking his head. “The water spray doesn’t even touch them.” He shrugged. “They will die naturally once the weather cools.”

The crowds were still angry. Talk of the Folkestone curse seemed to fade as local protective instincts took over. Ted Abbott’s popularity ratings were at an all-time low. The Ministry sent an ecologist to report on protection measures, but the butterflies seemed to be doing fine by themselves.

A local choir started turning up every day to sing to the butterfly cloud and provided Jayne with more coverage.  A T’ai Chi group started to practice regularly nearby.

The following day, Jayne was called off butterfly duties. A large boat of refugees had beached in Folkestone, as the people traffickers took advantage of the calming seas. The Coastguard and Border Forces were on hand to take the refugees into custody, but a young girl, lifted from the boat, seemed beyond rescue. Her father held onto her, crying out in his grief.

“She wanted to see les papillons! Les papillons!”

The guards shook their heads, not understanding.

“The butterflies! Take her to the butterflies!”

“We can’t!” said the Border Force guards, bristling their weapons, preparing to defend against any threats. “We have procedures, safety regulations. It’s not allowed.”

The crowd was too big, though, and the man and his daughter were led up the cliff to the crowd.

The crowd watched, awestruck, as the tip of the tear-shaped cloud came near to the girl’s hand.

  A tiny purple butterfly seemed to nestle in her palm, and the curtain of butterflies rippled and pulsed.

The girl took a deep breath, and coughed seawater all down her father’s front.  A doctor in the crowd took over, pumping the girl’s back to clear her lungs.

As she recovered, a further gasp went through the crowd. The butterflies re-formed into a heart shape, and then seemed to disperse, all at once, and at high speed into the distance. The 99 Sorrows were unlocked.

Copyright Lynne Collis 2021