The Late Lepidopterist and the Killing Jar
It was the second day of summer and the second to last day of the school term and and as the ten or so tons of bus gingered itself into the small dirt patch of car park the grumbling thunderheads overhead gave up under their weight and finally cracked open. This was rain of the sort that seemed not to fall but rather bloom in the air all around and at once. Thirsty as it was the ground had soon had its fill and more and with a lurching forwards and an inching backwards and a sinking and grinding left then right of its tires the bus guttered to a halt with its backside still half hanging out into the country road. They were some twenty minutes early. Even so, the face peering through the pluvial curtains had been sat as a fixture at the window for some time already.
Clarence had driven up just as the sun started glaring between the paperbark trunks on the hill to the west and showing up bright and cheerful the smeared insect remains on the windscreen. Since Val was killed he couldn’t stay in bed past when he woke up. Squinting, he almost missed the turnoff and swung in hard and at quite a clip, getting a bit sideways as he hit the dirt. He jumped on the breaks, switched off the ignition and sat for a moment to listen to the engine clicking as it cooled and roll his second cigarette of the morning. One before breakfast and one before work. After that it worked out at whenever the urge took him and circumstance allowed. He blew the smoke out the window and watched it eddy in the still air, showing up here and there the sunbeams slipping through the trees. Despite the light at its back he could make out the pale face of the Butterfly Farm from across the tiny car park. The only thing to mark it out as a place of business rather than the home of an impoverished retiree or maybe some reticent naturalist was a modest wooden sign beside the front steps that read Welcome to The Butterfly Farm. He’d stencilled the letters in chalkboard font and dark green paint.
The door of the Hilux slammed shut with a weary creak and an unconvincing clunk and he gave it a thump with his hip to make sure it was closed then turned his eyes to the ground. Whenever he walked about anywhere outdoors, and particularly in the vicinity of the Butterfly Farm, he almost always watched the ground for spiders. The funnel-webs were often out at this time of year and he’d once sent one scurrying into the leaf litter on the edge of the car park. His caution was part rational self-preservation and part violent dislike for the Araneae order in general. He had a healthy respect, verging on awe, for the remarkable success of their particularly extraordinary evolutionary odyssey and the uniquely lethal anatomy it had provided them with, but he found the way they moved distasteful. His bi-weekly excursions into National Parks to collect new specimens for the farm often brought him into much closer contact with those undergrowth assassins than he would have liked.
He escaped any unwanted encounter this morning and let himself into the front room that was notable in the almost pitch dark only for the faint scents of leather, dust and Mortein. The thick trees to the west and north let little light inside til late afternoon and so without electrical assistance the building housed only darkness in the morning and nothing but vague silhouettes til evening. He felt along the wall until he found the switch and the Butterfly Farm burst into colour. Every wall of the front room, the only part of the building open to visitors, was covered by large glass display cases containing a fair, if not entirely comprehensive in regards to the 14 000 species of moths, cross-section of Australia’s native Lepidoptera, along with a sizeable smattering of introduced and overseas specimens. They were arranged by family and genus, with spaces left for the native species still missing. He’d experimented with prettier arrangements based on size and colour but this had often left him at a loss to find a particular specimen while discussing its morphology and habits with a rare inquisitive visitor and so he’d returned to the scientific pattern that he could trace like the veins on the back of his hand. Beside some of the display cases were brief information boards and in one corner hung a television. Clarence switched it on and an ancient Englishman with a tweed jacket and a lisp began explaining the basics of a butterfly’s life cycle. The same documentary played on a loop constantly. It was the first video they’d found that had anything to do with butterflies and there had never seemed to be time to go searching for another one. In the opposite corner, closest to the front door, a cash register sat on a counter guarding the few overpriced plastic butterflies that served as the gift shop and alone in the middle of the room stood a long wooden table, covered as far as physics would allow with a cluttered display of any serious Lepidopterist’s stock paraphernalia. While the English lisp narrated the emergence of a moth from its chrysalis, he unlocked and exited through a door in the back corner of the room.
The hallway led from the front room along the back of the building, with two doors on the right and one at the end. It was windowless and lit sort of charity like by a single energy saving bulb. When he and Val had bought the place the first room on the right had been a combined kitchen and dining room with a split bench separating the two areas and large windows overlooking the bush. Val’s idea had been to convert the space into some sort of interactive activity centre with hands-on displays and butterfly themed games and a whole host of other excitements of that sort, all of which she’d conceived herself and designed down to the smallest detail. The second room on the right was the only indoor bathroom on the property, closed to visitors. Both doors were shut and he passed them by and unlocked the last door at the end of the hallway and slipped inside. So familiar were the resident odours here that they no longer registered save from in the form of a warm sort of sensation. He’d accidentally left his desk lamp on and the low light through its moss green hood lent an aqueous aspect to the precarious architecture of his labours. Stepping carefully between the waist high stacks of papers, books, boxed remains and specimen cases, he reached the cleared space at the centre and eased himself into his chair. There was nothing on his desk but a single book sitting open in the middle. His work of late, such as it had been, had been stuck in a tight slow orbit around a singularly rare and subtly beautiful American specimen. The St. Francis’ Satyr was the gravitational force that had drawn he and Val towards one another by consequence of its pull on each of them towards itself. They collided one night almost a quarter century ago, huddled beneath a cheap tent and three inches of rare North Carolina snow. They were nearing the sadly anticlimactic culmination of some six years of dedication to a certain professor’s obsession and they were cold. Not that there hadn’t been an attraction between them before that time. When they met at university they had quickly become close and on more than one occasion spent a drunken night together. But in the years since her death Clarence had begun more and more to try to dissect what they’d had to find out how much of it was love and how much was simply an intimately shared sense of vacant nostalgia. The book lying open in front of him now was written by their professor and published not long after their expedition concluded unsuccessfully. It described hopes of finding evidence of some interbreeding between the scattered populations of the Mitchell’s Satyr and its fellow subspecies of Neonympha mitchellii the St. Francis’ Satyr and the inconclusiveness of what little evidence was found. Until he’d discovered the book at the bottom of a box in the back of a cupboard in the spare room a week ago Clarence hadn’t even been able to recall the purpose of the study. In the years following their expedition the St. Francis’ Satyr had been pronounced extinct due to over collecting. Though a tiny isolated population was later found, Clarence still kept the three specimens he and Val had collected and preserved hidden deep in the refuse of his office and out of the public displays.
There was still a good six hours til the school group was due to arrive. He’d forgotten which one it was today, but he was sure it was one of the regular four. Most schools in the area booked a tour of the bird sanctuary for their syllabus-mandated native natural science excursion, but it was over thirty dollars a head and so the poorer schools generally came to him instead. Sometimes a teacher from one of the more well off institutions would leave it too late to book the bird sanctuary but they rarely returned. He decided to put aside the book for today. The day before he’d collected a few new specimens and although they weren’t new species, they were good specimens and he needed to pin them sooner rather than later if they were to remain as such. This part of the process always required a supreme act of will on his part in order to overcome is apathy towards it. Once a specimen had been captured in the field his enthusiasm evaporated. Something about a butterfly in flight moved him. The frenetically fluttering pair of wings only just held together by a tiny body describing seemingly desperate but somehow precise trajectories through the foliage was, to his mind, the most eloquent convergence of chaos and grace to be found in all creation. But simply sitting and watching such a spectacle was no form of work. With minimal effort he’d dug himself out a credible space in the academic niche of taxonomy. The couple of published articles bearing his name had hardly shaken the foundations of the discipline but he could say with modesty well intact that his voice was a respected one in the field. Recently, however, he’d had little to say. With a small sigh he reached for the esky beside his desk.
Three hours and six cigarettes later he set the last pinned specimen inside the Tupperware container and closed the lid, taking care that it was airtight. He marked the date on the lid and found a place for it atop a stack of empty display cases. As he sat back down at his desk he noticed for the first time the dry metallic din of cicadas that was coming through the room’s single window and filling the air. Often he hated the bush and the way it crowded up against the building. Val had planned to clear an area to the west and build a fully naturalised butterfly enclosure that would have become their main attraction. The building itself was to be extended to house a nocturama for moths. The plans were still there but he’d never been good with finance and couldn’t get the numbers to work well enough for the bank. He couldn’t say when the cicadas had started up but now that he’d become aware of the sound it nagged incessantly, pulsing steadily without rhythm. He thought about going outside for a smoke to clear his head but his mouth was still dry from the last one so instead he reached again for the professor’s book.
Before the driver had cut the engine, and with little regard for her shoes, a woman jumped down from the bus into the mud carrying a small backpack and a golf umbrella. Within a few moments the deluge had her light yellow spaghetti-strapped summer dress turning almost see-through and clinging about her hips. She struggled to open her umbrella while at the same time keeping an eye on the feet edging slowly down the steps behind her. Clarence watched her movements with no little interest. She looked to be in her early thirties and though her hair was dark with moisture it hung full and loose in the rain. Her sodden dress showed a dancer’s body and a large tattoo across her left shoulder blade. She was apparently the only teacher assigned to the excursion and the stresses of keeping some fifty little balls of energy in line were eventually unleashed upon the uncooperative umbrella. She flung it away, bent all out of shape and the crowd on the bus grew still and then slowly filed down the steps. Clarence took himself away from the window as the class spilled out into the wet, moving to stand by the open door. He checked his watch. It was eleven minutes to two. When he glanced back outside the rain had eased, and then it stopped, like a child who’s grown bored with tormenting some insect and wanders off to find more rewarding entertainment. The children themselves looked up in surprise, and then all of a sudden the car park erupted with shrieks and splashes as almost as one they discovered the mud puddles they were standing in. While the teacher moved quickly to restore order with a few sharp words, Clarence watched one young boy with dark curly hair bending down near a far corner of the veranda. The boy was squatting on his haunches and peering intensely at something on or very near the ground. He looked around for a stick and when he’d found one he picked it up and began poking at the thing gently at first but with a persistent savagery that gathered momentum and lit up his face. The teacher was busy coaxing a group out from under the bus and hadn’t noticed the ensuing mischief. Clarence hesitated for just a moment, then strode out onto the veranda.
Oi! he bellowed. Don’t even think about it son!
The boy looked up, startled. Clarence shouted again and started towards him but in his haste he missed the veranda steps, stumbled and nearly fell. In the second it took him to regain his balance the boy had slipped away from his victim and disappeared. All the children had fallen silent at the sound of an unfamiliar voice raised in anger and were watching him wide-eyed and curious. Their teacher too had turned with raised eyebrows and a little smile. The silence stretched on while Clarence scanned the crowd for the boy. Finally, having no luck, he cleared his throat.
Welcome to the Butterfly Farm, he said as though it was all he’d ever meant to say. Please remember to wipe your feet when you come in.
Without waiting to see if they were following, he turned and went back inside.
He stood under the television as the class filed in, damp and dishevelled. A few scuffed their shoes on the thin mat by the door that had once upon a time offered up an ironic greeting but it made little difference and the carpet was soon tracked all over with muddy little footprints. The teacher was the last through the door and she came leading by the hand a little blonde girl. The child’s eyes were red and her lower lip quivered ominously. Clarence tried to catch the teacher’s eye as she bent down to whisper a word in the girl’s ear but she didn’t seem to notice. He couldn’t hear what was said but as the teacher stood up the child giggled, sniffed and wiped her eyes. With the full complement of the school group now indoors there was little spare space to be had and muffled arguments over who should be standing where could be heard. Despite some having to stand on one another’s toes and keep their hands deep in their pockets in order to keep them to themselves all the children kept a respectable distance from the cluttered table in the middle of the room and from Clarence himself. They looked younger than the groups that normally came through. They may have been only seven or eight. The teacher closed the door gently behind her and stood with her hair dripping onto her shoulders and breasts. It was unlikely to dry any time soon in the close humidity.
Good afternoon, he began. I’m Mr. Reddan and I take care of the Butterfly Farm. It’s good to have you all here today and I hope you’ll learn a thing or two and have a bit of fun at the same time. Excuse me. Please don’t touch that.
A girl standing near the table had grown curious about some of the equipment piled up on it and her fingers were about to brush against a large glass jar but she quickly withdrew them at Clarence’s words.
That big jar right there’s got poison in it, he explained. It’s a Killing Jar. You don’t want to break it or even open it for that matter unless you know what you’re doing. Now, as you can see on the walls all around you there are a lot of different types of butterflies and moths.
Several hands had been raised but he asked them to save their questions for the end. Their natural reticence in new surroundings was beginning to wear off and many were becoming restless, tapping on the display cases and chatting amongst themselves. Somewhere in the crowd was a smack followed by a cry, which drew a sharp look from the teacher. Clarence hurried on with his spiel. He began by setting out the basic life cycle of moths and butterflies, explaining the unique part each stage has to play from the perpetually gorging larvae in the form of caterpillars to the amorous winged imago. He described the process of metamorphosis as best he could without becoming too technical. He then told them about the differences between butterflies and moths; how one’s brightly coloured and the other’s not, how one has a small, delicate body and the other has a solid, furry body, how one rests with it’s wings held together above its back and the other rests with them held straight out to the side, how one comes out during the day and the other comes out at night, how one has straight antennae with lumps on the end and the other has feathery antennae, how one forms a chrysalis and the other forms a cocoon and then he told them about all the exceptions to these rules. He told them how in Australia there were more than thirty times more species of moth than species of butterfly, despite the latter seeming more prominent since they come out mostly during the day. He referred to the habit moths have of flying towards artificial sources of light, even to their deaths, and mentioned that most people considered this a result of them using the moon and stars for navigation though nobody could prove it for certain. He pointed out some of the more common species in the display cases that they might have seen in their own backyards and told them about their feeding habits and what sort of flowers they should grow if they wanted to attract them. He touched on why butterflies display such brilliant colouring patterns and how the effects are produced and finally detailed the many ways butterflies and moths interact with their ecosystems, from symbiotic relationships between some caterpillars and ants to the pollinating role of adult butterflies. When he was finished he asked if they had any questions and four or five hands shot straight up. He nodded at the closest one, which belonged to a pale girl with carrot hair and a receding chin.
What’s a Killing Jar? she asked and the other raised hands all disappeared.
Well, a Killing Jar is what we use to kill a butterfly or moth after we catch it. It prevents the specimen from becoming damaged in the process. Any other questions?
The children were quiet for a moment and Clarence was about to unmute the television when a boy’s voice piped up from the back of the class.
Why do you have to kill the butterflies? Are they all dead?
We need to kill them so that we can study them. If you try and get up close to a butterfly while its still alive then it mostly just flies away. If you restrain it then it hurts itself trying to escape and you end up with a damaged specimen. Butterflies are beautiful to look at in the wild but if you want to study them in detail you need to kill some. Not many, just a few. They don’t suffer. They just go to sleep. And yes, I’m afraid the only butterflies we have here are the ones you see on the walls. There are a few in my office but they’re dead too.
But why do you have to kill the butterflies? This time it was the little blonde girl from outside who spoke. Her tiny fists were clenched full of the teacher’s dress and her voice was small and close to tears again. Why do you have to study them?
Because, Clarence began and he was ready to launch into his rehearsed explanation of the important role of research in the conservation effort when the unbidden image of three St. Francis’ Satyrs sitting in desiccated stasis in a box deep in his office took the words away from him.
Because that’s what I do, he said eventually.
But why don’t you have any alive butterflies?
Well, it’s very
I want to see the alive ones.
expensive…
They don’t move or anything.
I need to go to the toilet.
They’re boring all dead.
We get little yellow butterflies in
This is a big one.
my backyard that look like the little yellow flowers.
Jacob poked his tongue out
Miss, I really need
at me.
to go.
The chatter welled up until Clarence stopped trying to follow it and instead busied himself adjusting the volume on the television while he waited for the teacher to restore order so he could get them all watching the documentary and then step out for a cigarette. But the seconds passed and the chatter got louder and no sharp clapping of hands or barked commands broke the rising racket and when he turned back around the door was open and he could see the teacher standing outside with her back to him talking on her mobile phone. With his heart beginning to thump hard in his chest he turned the volume right up on the television and threaded his way through the crush of children. He was almost to the door when he caught side of the young boy with the curls again. He was standing next to the little blonde girl and whispering something hard into her her and Clarence watched the girl’s eyes grow wide and her mouth form a little ‘o’ of fear. He changed course and the boy saw his approach and his lips snapped shut.
Here, Clarence said to the girl took her gently by the shoulder and steered her outside. He sidled up behind the teacher with the girl close by him but she was speaking quietly and with some heat into her phone and didn’t notice. Her hair had dried a little and hinted at a natural hue towards dirty blonde. He hesitated a moment unsure of whether, or how, to interrupt. He was still undecided when she suddenly pressed the phone against her chest and turned on him with eyebrows raised and lips pursed a little. Even out here the commotion of her charges ruffled up the air and the seconds ticked by without a word between them as Clarence waited with what he hoped was a beseeching look for some sort of reaction on her part to the hubbub inside but all that came was a slight raising of her eyebrows.
Well? What?
Clarence never answered. Before he could get a single word out there came from inside the sound of shattering glass. He and the teacher both turned in time to see the boy with dark curly hair sway and then stumble to the ground beside the remains of a lidless jar. For what seemed like a very long time there was no sound but the drilling of cicadas and it was this stretch of seconds that Clarence cradled carefully with an unfamiliar thrill that he imagined was much like a person would feel at the discovery of a new species.